AN ADDRESS OF THANKS TO A Good Prince.  
Presented In the PANEGYRIC of Pliny, upon Trajan, the Best of Roman Emperors.  
LONDON, Printed by M. Flesher, for Tho. Fickus, Bookseller in Oxford. 1685.   

THE PREFACE.  
WHEN the peevishness of petitioning was universally improved into the more generous humour of Address, when Remonstrance to all public Conduct was happily succeeded with Resignation to Royal pleasure, when the murmurs of Faction were gauged, and Loyalty had leave to be loud: It was obvious to reflect on this gratulatory Speech of Pliny, and to conclude that nothing penned at so wide a distance came so nearly up for an application to our own times. For sure a gratitude for the comforts of an easy Government, and a recognizance of the merits of a Gracious Prince were never more requisite, never more opportune. And would our Supreme Master be as patient to a just Harangue, as he has been to the most insolent Libels: Would he put up a seeming compliment with as much of unconcern, as he has done many substantial affronts: No question somewhat of this nature had been attempted. But we live so pure from a compulsion of inventing shams for flattery, that we must stifle some truths for fear of their being thought so. And thus long silence where there have been so many temptations to be Eloquent, can upon that caution only be accounted for. However what we dare not imitate, we may at least rehearse: And may apply a Translation, where we must not venture at a like Original.  
The occasion of this dutiful Address was a motion in the Roman Parliament that there should be some solemn presentment of their thanks to the Emperor for his most Excellent manage of Affairs. This Form of their Allegiance they assign to be drawn up and in public delivered by their most Honourable Member the Consul Pliny. He accepts the Province, and in a full House, the Emperor himself being present, makes an elaborate Speech, and at the expense of three days in recital, sets it off with an admired elocution. This fluent draught he afterward on more composed thoughts reviewed, corrected and enlarged, giving it up to a more spreading publication in that model, we have it now conveyed to us. The intent of it he assures us, was first a deserved commendation of the good Trajan, and then the offer of a kind of winning Lecture to future Princes, (not by way of assertory instructions, which he was sensible would have looked saucy and pedantic) by recommending the best of Precedents to insinuate upon their imitation, which had a more taking semblance of modesty, and promised a stronger influence.  
The style of it in the primitive Latin (except in some more obscured passages, which in all likelihood the transmission only has corrupted) is incomparably correct and elegant, and so aptly garnished with unaffected figures, that 
* Instructions concerning the Art of Oratory. Oxford 1682. 8o Second Edit. Sect. 3. p. 19  one of our best Instructours for Oratory illustrates and exemplifies most of his ornamental tropes by instances drawn from this single Tract. In his method of descant he husbands each particular circumstance to the most complete advantage, and gently strains most of his occasional hints beyond their natural tendence, which, though an uncomely excrescence in familiar narration, is a confessed embellishment to a more free discourse. Our charity has motives to believe that his inducement hereunto was no jolly heat or rant of Loyalty, but a generous releasement of his very thoughts, a handsome Exercitation upon what matter of fact prescribed, and every honest tongue could freely vouch. Yet some strokes are so flourishing that should they be transferred to a more justifying occasion, a disaffected moroseness would censure them for thick and luscious daubing.  
It is certain both the Subject and Language have been so well approved, that its consinement in the Roman dialect was long since envied, and a discovery to the English Reader made by the most ingenious Sir Robert Stapylton, 
* Oxford. 4o 1644.  whose ashes can resent it as no affront, that we cast by his decent dress, and reinvest it (as presumed) in a more modish garb. That learned Gentleman was a Critic at Translating, as the humour then prevailed, which was a religious adherence to the turn of each original period, and a preferring the integrity of being close and exact before the tempting regards of a smother cadence. But I think the measures of Rendering are by a practised consent since altered, and allowance is given as well for insertions to connect, where the sense would be otherwise abrupt or incoherent; as for omissions to exclude what, though copious in one tongue, would be redundant in another. A respect to the observance of these rules may justify this new attempt: For with nothing of reflection on that honourable Person we may modestly enough affirm, that he conforms so devoutly to the same phrase, deviates so little from the same dimensions of each sentence and expression, that he is sometime diffuse and copious, where it would better dispense with the smartness of being more acute; and is at other times blunt and concise, where the memory by struggling to recollect the obscured sense would rather have it more express and intelligible. But farther, since that too accurate and precise performance, the Latin copy by the emendations of the Sheldonian Press is vindicated from so many abruptions and entangling chasms, that it is far more fluent and easy, than any of the correctest Impressions could ever before absolve it. And therefore if some passages in the Original were harsh and corrupt, it was more excusable, though not more pleasing, that the transcript in those several fractures should be more rough and ambiguous. Add to this, the range and disposure of the former was one undivided continuance of delivery without any intermitting partitions, whereas here in compliance with the Oxford Edition (which did not first start the invention, but borrowed the contrivance from 
* In his Edi. of Panegyrici veteres Illustrated with Notes for the use of the Dauphin, Paris, 1676. 4ᵒ  Jacobus de la Baune) there be interposed at each convenient distance such numerary Sections, which render the matter more methodical, and gratefully relieve the patience of the Reader.  
The affinity of this Subject with the happy circumstances of our own times seemed to invite a Parallel. And indeed there is no one virtue here ascribed to a Roman Emperor, but what we can completely match in a British Monarch. Nay the odds would be vastly ours: For in the experience of afflictions, in the fortitude of sufferance, in moderation, lenity, prudence, and some other Royal Ornaments, we want a precedent of past ages, and can dare the longest posterity to produce and offer a Comparison. So that an endeavour of making the Parallel run exact would be an injury to him, who is proposed to complete it: For to bestow on him all these Eulogies would scarcely fill up one half of his character, and should we pursue a rehearsal of whatever might be fairly imputed, the design would be suspected not to rival, but outvie, not to equal, but excel: Which, though a Justice on the one part, would be a seeming derogation on the other. It is therefore thought more convenient to refer the task of comparing for an exercise of recollection to the Reader. And indeed we may challenge the most unthinking to run it over so slightly, as not to be reminded of several home instances extremely like to what he here observes. Can he read of the immediate Predecessour's being assaulted and imprisoned by the rudeness of Factious Mutineers; and not reflect on the more barbarous villainies against our latest Martyr? Can he glance on the remark of Trajan's adoption to compose all differences, and to settle the tottering Empire; and not consider a well timed Restauration to heal up the mischiefs of Anarchy, and redress the ruins of a sinking Nation? Can we find the young Hero trained up for a Soldier under the conduct of his own Father, and forget a Prince educated in like Military service, at the same age, under the same Instructor? Can we dwell on the description of Trajan's entrance into Rome at his first advance to the Empire; and not resemble it to the solemn march of a returning Sovereign through his spacious Imperial City? Can he hear Trajan extolled for an open liberality; and not think on the more generous bounty of a Prince, who has bosomed and warmed his most inveterate enemies? Can he listen to the character of a gentle forgiving humour; and not look to a goodness, that has outdone the mercies of Heaven itself in the sealing of pardons without repentance? In a word, can he shuffle over any one material passage without gaining a hint of some domestic occurrence, that bears a near relation to it?  
There is indeed one odd kind of virtue in Trajan which we care not should be honoured with imitation, and that is his wheedling of the Mobile by several little less than sneaking insinuations, which betray a too violent ambition of being popular, and imply that he chose rather to be a Fondling than a Master of his Subjects, which, however specious and alluring, tastes of a low soul, and unhinges all Government, makes obedience and submission precarious, animates to claim as a debt whatever is in a good humour granted, and is in effect a resignation of all authority on the one hand, and a dispensation for resistance on the other. A main specimen of this easiness in Trajan is his fine bravo 
* Sect. 67.  at the delivery of a Sword to the Captain of his Guards, Take this, and if I Govern well, use it for me: But if ill, against me. This generous charge two Republican Commentators are so much affected with, that one 
* Johannes Maria Catanaeus. Genev. 1643. 4o, p. 128.  of them thinks it a concession never enough to be commended; and the other, 
† Justus Lipsius Oxon. 1662. 12o p. 196, 197.  good man! is angry with the dull Pliny for being no more rhetorical on so inviting a Topick, that he should give so slight a touch on an action, which, if set off to its due advantage, would alone suffice for a complete Panegyric. That all commissioned Officers should draw their swords in their Supreme General's defence, if he would be honest and orderly: But if imperious and abusive, should brandish them to his Execution; Ay! this was a piece of the law of nature, and always an inherent liberty of the Subject: But former Princes had been too shy and surly to own it, it was Trajan the Best, who would first make the concession: Nay pass that into an avowed command, which in its atmost improvement before had been but a tacit allowance. This passage with other of like tendence were pertly cited, and very lovingly applied by that virulent 
‖ See Dr. Peter Heylyn's Cyprianus Anglicus: Or, the History of the life and death of William Laud Arch. of Canterbury, etc. London 1674 in Fol. Part 1. l. 2. under the year 1622. p. 88, 89. Histeria & Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis. Oxon. 1674. fol. lib. 1. under the year 1622. p. 326, 327, etc.  Preacher in King James' Reign, who borrowed his Notions of subjection from David Paraeus, and so brought on the Commentaries of that Author the mockery of Martyrdom. And the Reformed Brethren of Scotland, who were never much addicted to admire any thing that came from a Prince, were yet so mightily taken with this compliment of the emperor's, that in the minority of a late Prince they stamped on their Coin the Impress of a Sword with that Motto. It was a more goodly precept for liberty than any their barren Gospel would afford: And though it was a Heathen rant from one Prince to a particular Subject, they would adopt it for an universal Christian duty, and in such a case, devout souls, for once they would obey for conscience sake. Nay there has scarce been any one pestilent Libel teemed to promote Anarchy and justify 
* Steph. Junii Bruti Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, etc. Ursellis 1600. 12o quaest. 3. p. 158. Anonymous Treatise De jure Magistratuum in Subditos, etc. p. 217. annexed usually to the former; both which very scandalous and pernicious pieces have been almost generally reputed to have been penned by Theod. Beza; although some, I know, have fathered the latter on his Comrade Francis Hottoman, the great Civilian. Grot. De jure belli ac pacis, etc. l. 1. c. 4. Sect. 6. Johannis Miltoni pro Populo Anglicano defensio, etc. Londini 1651. 12o P. 176, 177. With many other.  Rebellion, but what has gloried in this Quotation and built upon it the consequence of an Arbitrary Submission, not longer to be practised than while no Oppressions or Grievances could be plausibly or indeed possibly complained of. Yet it must be confessed that 
* Joannis A dami Osiandri Jus belli ac pacis Hug. Grotii illustratum Tubingae, 1671. 8o ad l. I. c. 4. Thes. 6. Observatio, P. 552. Sam. Botharti Epistola Domino Morley adjecta Geographiae Sacrae, etc. Francof. 1674. 4o p. 54. Dr. William Falkner's Christian Loyalty, etc. London, 1679. 8o b. 2. c. 5. Sect. ●. Para. 8. Dr. Gabriel Towersons Explication of the Decalogue, etc. London, 1681, Fol. On the 5th. Com. Part 7. p. 259. Sir George Mackenzie's Jus Regium, etc. Lond. 1684. 8o p. 50. Dr. Will. Sherlock's Case of Resistance, etc. London, 1684. 8o c. 5. P. 171, 172. Besides Dr. William Howel, who barely mentions it; Institution of General History, etc. London, 1680. Fol. Second Edit. b. 4. c. 5. p. 883.  Learned Authors of a Calmer temper have constantly given for more sober interpretations of this so unwary and inconsiderate a flourish. But whether this expression of Trajan were only the stretch and effort of a complaisant humour; or no more than a figure to dress up his confidence of that Person's integrity to whom it was applied: Or whether (what's indeed the most plausible Salvo, yet argues a flight of generosity beyond discretion) it was a declaration of his fixed Resolves to govern well. We are sure if it be interpreted for a Serious instruction, for any practicable advice, nothing could more proclaim the unadvisedness of that Prince, because nothing more evacuates all the ties of Allegiance. For if Subjects must in truth no longer submit, than they confess themselves unopprest and honestly dealt with: But as soon as a little teased with any imaginary wrong (for they themselves are to be sole judges, or the principle has no consequence) may fly in the face of that authority, which gives 'em the affront, and depose that power which they suspect will be too hard for 'em, is so rank a Tenet, that Treason, Tumult, Anarchy, Confusion, and all the licentious mischiefs of Earth and Hell would be its damning inference: The Prince being crushed into the most helpless of slaves, and every peevish Incendiary preferred his Supremer Lord. It hurries on so violently to Seditions and Rebellion, that did the Romans believe they might do what this direction to the Captain implied, and yet permit the Emperor, who authorised 'em with that privilege, to pass his one and twenty year● Reign without any mutiny or insurrection: I say did the Romans suppose it to be serious advice, and yet never pervert it to the prejudice of him, who bestowed it, nothing less can be inferred than (what is not handsome to own) that the Loyalty of Heathens surmounts that of the precisest Christians, since the one could be steadily obedient where they had in a manner leave to resist: And yet the other be so apt to rebel, where they have all the restrictions of Nature, Religion, and National Laws to submit and be quiet.  
Nay had this soothing Prince delivered it as a licence to have himself chastised, yet by the frankest concession he could not have authorised the Captains revolt. For it is even beyond the Prerogative of Supreme Powers to Legitimate Resistance, or endow their Subjects with a Charter to Rebel. However valid unextorted Resignations and voluntary assents to deposition may be, yet 'tis certain no Sovereign Authority, while so continuing, can dispense any liberty for disobedience, or absolve from the crime of Treason, any more than my saying to another, I'll give you leave to kill me, would in justice acquit him from the guilt of Murder.  
So that what ever acceptation it will bear, there is nothing more illogical, impertinent, or absurd than to allege it as an authentic plea for Subjects by force to amend the suspected irregularities of their Governors: Yet to this use have a great many late Demagogues most pertly applied it in challenge and defiance to all the evident restrictions of Nature's and Religion's Laws. Some from hence inferring a right of Resistance as a property of each the most inferior member of Societies: Others by a modester (though no less mischievous) retrench confining it to the subordinate Magistrates, whose Office is pretended to empower 'em for a defence of the people's liberties, though in express opposition to that Superior, who deputed 'em.  
After all, the most natural deduction, which I conceive this passage capable of, is this, that such flashes of good nature in a Prince may be of very hurtful consequence, they prostitute his honour, alienate his Authority, and make all the rabble an execrable High Court of Justice. Hence I wondered at always and condemned the inconfiderateness of those Authors, who, though they would interpret it to no disloyal tendence, yet have winked at the consequence they are presumed to detest, and have only extolled this saying for the noble sally of a resolute, undaunted, and Heroick Soul. Whereas 'tis at the best but an unwary vapour, an indigested slant of popularity, to the quest whereof this Prince was too abundantly addicted, as is farther conspicuous in several other of his demeanours remarked in the following harangue: Particularly in the 65th Sect. where Pliny seems to intimate that Trajan had submitted himself to Govern upon the strange and unheard-of terms of the Prince not being above the Laws, but the Laws above the Prince: Which destroys the prime and fundamental Prerogative of Princes, their being unaccountable to any but God, and was the very Principle our late Regicides proceeded on. It is true, if that specious Maxim be meant only of the preeminence of the Laws in a bare directive and regulative power, it is what sober men have always owned, and wise Princes have as duly practised; but if it must be understood (as the occasion and coherence in Pliny intimate) of a coercive, and vindicative power to be exercised on Supreme Governors; whenever their Subjects shall adjudge 'em guilty of the breach of those Laws, which they have obliged themselves by oath to observe: It debases the Prince beneath the vilest Malefactor, and exposes his Person to the worst of Butcheries: For though it proclaims not an impunity to a private Assassinate, yet it ascertains the Murder, and enhances the ignominy, by justifying a formal execution.  
These strictures upon the uncautious humour of Trajan I have thought fit to premise from an hearty averseness to whatever plausible pretences may instigate to Sedition. Such little improvident deliveries are as poisonous as the rankest of downright positions, nay they be more fatal, because tricked up in a more specious guise, where the venom in being less discerned is the more palatably imbided, and spreads its infection with the greater defiance to Art and Antidote. So that if this censure obviate all farther contagion, it is what my honest endeavours sincerely aim at, and what my prayers shall never be wanting to promote.  
Yet after this reflection on the easiness and indecent compliances of Trajan I must do him so much justice as to confess, that he was judicious enough to foresee the mischiefs of his hanging on the people's courtesy; and therefore whenever any impendent danger threatened, he vindicated his dignity from all encroachments, and sharply quelled all the assaults of faction, as is evident in several occurrences of his Reign, more eminently in his exemplary justice on those Rebels, who disturbed his Predecessour's peace, Casperius and his Pretorians, who protested against Nerva's pardon of Domitian's Murderers, and Covenanted to bring 'em all to a condign punishment: Yet without any injury to the Person of their Prince; but for all this winning and pious pretext, Trajan sends for 'em, and amidst their hopes of excuse and preferment, executes the Leader and principal followers: To which just vengeance the happiness of his remaining years is more to be attributed than to any Clemency or sparing Indulgence.  
And now I ask the Reader no other mercy, but that when he has run through this Character of a Roman Emperor, he would bless the Divine Providence for living under the protection of a more Gracious Monarch, who wants nothing but the united Allegiance of his Subjects to make him Happier than Augustus, since Heaven's and his own goodness have already made him even Better than Trajan.  
Novemb. 1. 1684.   

Postscript.  
SINCE the delivery of these Sheets to the Press, so eminent an alteration has sadly happened, as were it not too late, might have occasioned some different measures of Application in the Preface: Which being drawn up while we enjoyed that Prince, we now lament, I refrained from a Parallel with our Roman Hero, chiefly because the merits of the living are never celebrated without a suspicion of flattery, though the strictest regards be had to simplicity and truth. This objection being now dearly removed, it seems opportune to attempt what before was improper. But the discouragements, which even yet remain, are too affrighting to be dispensed with: For characters can never be tolerably given, where deserts exceed description: Where the Subject is too big for Language, it is discretion to be silent: And when virtues want words to represent them, it is not only safer but more just to admire than to commend. In such a case to praise would be to derogate, the most lively draught would be disfiguring, the briskest flourish but a Libel: No justice can be paid to such an argument, but a complaint of its being inexpressible, a dumb submission is the most mannerly respect, and amazement the only eloquence. This motive has alone deterred me from offering any other Tribute to the Memory of our late Blessed Sovereign: For to represent such inimitable Glories were as much a vanity, as to daub the lustre of the Sun, nay to draw such a Prince were no less irreverence than to paint a God. Therefore I humbly desist, where it is worse than presumption to proceed; and disclaim all attempts, where it is not more my weakness than my duty to be unable.  
That surprising change since the dismission of the foregoing Papers may however have presented us with this advantage, that the Parallel might now be doubled. Our Trajan can be completely matched, nay beyond comparison outvied, not only by a deceased, but by a Reigning Monarch. A Monarch who by submission while a Subject taught others to obey, and himself to command: Whose Patience, Generosity and Courage were never more the envy of the factious, than the triumph of the Loyal. Whose Auspicious Entrance on a Throne, assures the happiest progress, and merits the longest Establishment on it. A Monarch whose accomplishments are in each respect so admirable, that they surmount flattery, and defy the rankest malice: Whose Virtues are every way so Illustrious, that they dazzle as much as enlighten, and (what his piety abhors) they even threaten to eclipse the Glories of his Royal Predecessor.  
March 3. 1684/ 5.   

THE LIFE OF Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus.  
THAT the Lives of illustrious Authors should be a Preface to their Works, custom has not made more fashionable, than use does requisite: For after all the Philosophic advice to weigh the value of what is said, without any poise from the authority of the Speaker, a reception (though not the Nature) of truths depends much on the Character of him, who delivers them: So that the same Argument, managed to the same advantage, shall by a respect to the Writer, be obliged with attention and caress, or else by a misconceit be prejudged to scorn and neglect. The consequence of this must farther be, that those drudges for the public, whose names and repute are yet obscure, aught in policy to lie concealed, lest their meanness, when discovered, prejudice their attempts: While of such again, whose open esteem can secure an acceptance of whatever they deal in, it is their prudence to own their endeavours, and it is their interest, as much as honesty, to legitimate their Issue, where the dignity of the Parent will be entailed on the offspring. This justifies our brave Roman, that while living he dared Father what ever was the result of his manly wit; and this accounts for the greater convenience of prefixing his Life, since a knowledge of his deserts will be sure to put an estimate on his labours. Most of the learned Worthies of past generations have by a later piety been thus revived, as far as a groping after their relics would permit: But alas many were interred so deep, so dark, that even their ruins were perished, and the utmost diligence could recover but few of their remains. This unhappiness is abundantly redressed in the memory of our present Author, who in his Epistles has left us such copious memorial of his life and temper, that from thence alone there wants nothing but a method to collect as full an account of him, as is necessary to bestow, or natural to desire.  
He was born An. Chris. 62. U. C. 815. At Novo-Comum a Town of Italy, eminent for nothing so much, as for being the place of nativity to so great a Man, who we presume esteemed it afterward no scandal to have peeped into the World from so obscure a part of it, but thought it rather noble to shed a lustre on his birth place, than to derive a glory from it. However by his grateful munificence it was soon made more populous and remarkable, by the encouragement he there gave to Inhabitants, in the Erecting of a public School liberally endowed, with a Library adjoining so competently furnished, that no question it invited a choice resort.  
He was the Son of L. Caecilius by a Sister of Pliny the Natural Historian. He lost his Father while young, who, for aught we know, left him no other Legacy, but that of a good example. His widowed Mother destitute of the helps of Education delivers him up to his learned and wealthy Uncle, who yet resolved, if degenerate in virtue, not to own him allied in blood: This trial was soon made, and our Eaglet stood the test. For by a vigilant observance of his inclinations and deportment, the old Gentleman was so well satisfied, that by the custom of their Laws he adopted him into a nearer Relation, and at his death (occasioned by the eruptions of Vesuvius) left him heir of his Name and fortunes. But before this casualty he had been very provident for the breeding his Nephew. He assigned him first to Quintilian that Master of Eloquence, who transfused into him all those precepts, which hitherto so richly oblige the World, and he found him so quick, so tractable, that he never saw reason to spur his industry or amend his apprehension; he had in him the luscious comfort of a docile learner, and the only danger was lest his jealousies might have curbed that forwardness he was surprised at, and made him inclinable to suspect, that from his Scholar he would soon commence his Rival. But he preferred his duty before any envious regards, and, it is certain, did not only initiate him in the Elements of that Art he professed, but laid him in directions for the methodizng of all his future studies, which the obedient Pupil so embraced, that when emancipate from his more immediate discipline, he still copied his prescriptions, and conformed to that model, which was set him by so able an Architect: As appears particularly from his so often running through the Decades of Livy, which was a task no question advised him by his great Instructor, who always betrayed a singular affection for this Author, and in his most excellent Institutions recommends him as most worthy of a repeated perusal.  
When thus lectured in Rhetoric, he was now ripe for a course in Philosophy, and to enter upon this under as expert a guide, as he had attained the former, he was given up to the tuition of Nicetes a learned Priest, who was to make him both honest and devout; such was the discipline of that polite age, that a being principled in Religion was one of the chief accomplishments of a Gentleman; and though all was no better than Idolatry and Romance, a being versed in their sacred rites was not esteemed a fit knowledge for an Augur only, much less was the being moulded into strict and pious thought prejudicial in the depressure of their spirits, in the souring of their humours, or in the spoiling of their complaisance.  
Under his government he made so good a proficience, that his Uncle with joy perceived he was fitted both for years and learning to reap the advantages, and conquer the inconveniences, of a foreign travel, which he knew well was a completing piece of Education, if the Itinerant was of age and discretion not to hug novelties, not to ape customs, but to collect remarks, and then digest them, to observe, to reflect, to compare, and to better his judgement by a residence abroad, rather than burden his memory for ostentation at return. With these hopes he dispatched him to Syria, which was then as much the common Mart of Literature, as Egypt had been before. Yet here the wary old Uncle would not trust him with a disposal of his own time, but lest too great a leisure might expose him to such temptations, which he should be too idle to resist, he provides him an employ, and lists him a young Volunteer; where yet he served as if arms were to be his diversion, not his; and therefore he was oft allowed leave to retire from the camp to his studies, in which he had the most eminent Director those Countries could afford, the famed Euphrates, whose Lectures he devoutly heard, and was possibly the greatest encourager, if not the sole motive, of his after remove to Rome. Him he honoured, and admired, and gives him this Character to a friend, that his aspect was all gravity, without the slightest dash of sourness, which commanded a respect, yet imposed no terror; in discourse he was both copious and acute, in his instructions strict and serious, yet always easy, affable, and skilled at such a winning force, that he could lead the rational, and even draw the obstinate, he could chastise an error without correcting the deluded, he could reform without censure, and amend without reproof: Nay he had such an obliging knack at persuasive, that the mistaken took a pleasure to be his Converts, and even wished to be again satisfied, after they were fully convinced.  
When by a visit of the most remarkable places, an observance of their policy, and a mastery of the language, he had completely answered the design of his mission, he prepares to depart, and laded with those accomplishments, which are the richest Cargo of a traveller, he returns to his expecting Friends; but e'er a long abode with his Mother and Uncle, he loses the latter, and thereby at eighteen years of age succeeds to a plentiful estate. Among other Legacies, that which he most prized was 160 Volumes of his Uncle's Works, filled up in the margin, and wrote on the very covers all by his own hand, for which when their number was somewhat less, he had in Spain been offered four Hundred Thousand Sesterces: The compiling of these argued him an indefatigable Student, and being so severe an accounter for his own time, he might less invidiously urge others to an improvement of theirs, which his Nephew assures us was his constant humour; he was always a Lecturing him into industry, and was so impatient of his least remissions from study, that seeing him one day walking (and possibly intent on a recollection of what he had lately read) he chid him for so idle a diversion, and sharply told him he might be better employed. So that this method of a sedentary intenseness might probably first have been taken up by our young Student out of a design to oblige the old man, till it passed from a constrained custom to a voluntary habit, from an assiduous practice to a settled inclination. It is worth the pains to relate that he gave one notorious instance of it: When his Uncle at Micene in a surprise at the inflammation of Vesuvius was sailing out to take a nearer prospect of the danger, he comes and asks his Nephew to accompany him in that, which proved his last Voyage, but he bluntly waves the invitation, and very fairly tells him, he had rather continue at his Books: Though he durst not without doubt have been so rough to one, whose years might suppose him peevish, and yet whose favour it was so much his interest to retain, if he had not foreseen it would be so far from being resented as a contempt or affront, that it would be the most taking compliment, he could possibly return.  
He had not been long entered upon his new inheritance, before his resolves of settlement were directed to Rome, where he fixed his residence, not because the Town and the Court might be most opportune for a stage of pleasure and diversion, but that he thought here the most advantageous platform to build up his future fortunes. And therefore he would not be flushed into Spark nor Gallant, but sensible that the best husbandry of his Revenues, would be the purchase of a good name, he toiled so hard in retirements, and relaxed himself so well in company, that he soon gained the repute of a smart and solid Gentleman. The most early specimen of his parts he had given in the composure of a Greek Tragedy at fourteen years of age, wherein he so happily approved himself in the proper Genius of sublime, in the true Air of the buskin, that he supervived his years, and in his nonage wrote man by the best Periphrasis. A success in this soon heated him on to fresh attempts, and in his Voyage from Cyria about seventeen he falls upon Latin Elegiacs on the Icarian Sea, which we need not doubt were soft and smooth. But he knew these were juvenile sports, which it would be fatal to be addicted to, and therefore when he had enough for bare accomplishment, resolved to make no employ of what had poverty and affectation entailed for a curse, he was not so fond of the Beggar or the Fop, but that he steered his endeavours to a more honourable Port, and applies himself to a study of the Civil Law: In this he soon commenced so hopeful a Proficient, that upon a short preparation he was ripe for the Bar, and before twenty appeared for his Client in the Roman Forum, where his plead were so connect, and his delivery so becoming, that there was scarce afterward any cause of moment, wherein he was not by one of the parties retained.  
From the Forum he advanced to the Senate, and could argue before that august assembly with as much courage, as he had done in the more Inferior Courts. And here he was engaged in several of the most important concerns, as the management of the Spaniards charge against Bebius Massa, the prosecuting another of their informations against Caecilius Classicus, the defence and acquitment of Julius Bassus and Varenus, and what was the most eminent, he opened the impeachment of Marius Priseus Proconsul of Africa, charged by his province of bribery and extortion, in the urging of this he was so brisk and resolute, nay so eager and intent, that the kind Emperor more than once ordered the Freeman to whisper and advise his Master that he should not injure his Lungs, nor drain his Spirits, nor overcharge his constitution, however with humble thanks for the caution, he zealously proceeds, and so exposes the case, that the Senate confessed themselves infinitely satisfied, and the Criminal was sentenced to perpetual banishment.  
He was too eminent to be thought useless, and therefore his Country soon proposed to experience his abilities in some more public Station. Hence he was honoured with a Commission to supervise the repairs of the AEmilian way. He was a splendid Praetor for the City: A zealous Tribune for the people: A faithful Quaestor for the Emperor: A Perfect of the Treasury for the State: And an Augur for the Gods. But his most active preferments were his Proconsular dignity in Pontus and Bythinia, and his Consulship at Rome. In the former (which was last executed) he held a constant correspondence with his Imperial Master Trajan, and took all his measures from his advice, which he conformed to, with so much of resolution and dispatch, that he won on the affections of his Province, countermined the malice of his Enemies, and for ever secured the favour of his Prince.  
It was from hence he dated that generous Testimony and Character he gave the Christians. For it being the mistake of Trajan, that this growing Sect would interrupt and disturb the peace of his Empire, he had given instructions to all his Ministers to suppress them by a smart persecution. Our Proconsul knew these orders must be obeyed through the extent of his Jurisdiction; yet he thought it not impertinent to give his honoured Lord some account of the humours and behaviour of the Men, before he went on to the extremest rigour. In this description we may be sure he spoke as a candid Relatour, not as a bias Friend: And indeed the danger of being partial was on the other hand; for he abhorred the scandal of leaning to that new superstition, and he wrote to one, whom it was manners to sooth, which yet he could not better do, than by confirming that prejudice, he had so devoutly enterained. But maugre these inducements, it was his honour to speak the truth, and it was his Loyal Master's Virtue to hear it. He therefore declares, that their only crime, or rather mistake, was that they assembled before day to sing a form of devotions to Christ their God, where they bound themselves by Sacrament, yet not to violate the Roman Laws, not to perpetrate any villainies, but to avoid Theft, Robbery, Adulteries and breach of Faith. When they had done this, they never spent their thoughts to Conspire, or cabal; but marched quietly off to their respective homes. And this so much calmed the exasperated Trajan, that he remitted his passion, and return d answer, that they should not be held in, nor enquired after, but if by others prosecuted should have Justice, and a fair Trial. Yet was this a concession he would never have made, had he not been fully convinced that they were neither seditious, nor disloyal, as he at first surmised. For indeed there was no one Emperor more provident in crushing the growth of Faction: As will appear by this single instance. Pliny had petitioned him, that there might be a Corporation of Mechanics founded by Charter at Nicomedia: But the prudent Prince, though it seemed but a trivial boon, and asked by such a favourite, whom he was not wont to deny, yet he gives him this one repulse, and assigned no other reason, than that such Societies were always prone to Faction, and were the common nurseries of riotous and discontented spirits.  
When he had discharged his government with no unhappiness but that of envy, he comes back to Rome, and is comforted with an humble Address from his dependants, an hearty welcome from his Friends, and a Gracious Reception from his Prince. But precedent to this honourable employ abroad had been his Consulship at home; an Office which his tasted art of conduct had proclaimed him worthy of; so that, with no pause from his Prefectship of the Treasury, to this the Emperor recommends, and the people in duty accept him. And to sweeten the enjoyments of it, he was blest with a Colleague, who was Partner of his thoughts, as well as of his dignity, the good Tertullus. It was in these circumstances that he delivered his Panegyric, in a full Senate, with a reverend aspect, and deliberate voice, it costing him three days to rehearse.  
It was not from this instance only, but from a long Series of Loyalty, that he was so ingratiate with his Prince, as upon an humble motion to procure any reasonable act of Grace. Yet he made use of this power not to advantage himself, but to prefer his Friend. And the Emperor, as sound a Politician as any that flourishing State was ever Crowned with, thought it no reflection on his manage to have a potent favourite, and therefore let him command what courtesies he pleased to entreat. His opportunities to serve his Dependants were by this means frequent, and the grants considerable. He got for his Physician Harpocrates, for Crysippus, and other Aliens, a freedom of Rome. He obtained for the children of Antonia, and other hopeful persons, the name and privilege of Gentlemen. He advanced Sura to the Praetorship, and his Chamber-fellow Voconius to several successive dignities.  
Nor was it only at the Emperor's cost, that he maintained his Friends; but where they were indigent and ready to accept, he would as freely spend from his own stock; wherein his bounty was always unconditionate, he never hooked by civilities, nor tampered with his favours; yet were his Largesses precious and munificent. He settled on his decayed Townsman Caninius Rufus, a handsome salary for encouragement and support in a studious life. He allowed Martial a comfortable pension to board him in a Country retirement. Metilius Crispus he sent to a good military employ abroad, and gave him a round sum at departure to bear his charges. To Voconius Romanus he gave three thousand Sesterces to make him up a Gentleman's Estate; and to his Master Quintilian, at the Marriage of his Daughter, he sent fifty thousand Sesterces, as a portion for the decent Bride.  
And those he embraced for Friends were not his Neighbours and Relations only, but all the most eminent of each faculty or science. Of Poets he had Martial and Silius Italicus, the first a Prince in Epigram, the second a Peer in Heroic. Of Historians he had both Tacitus and Suetonius, he took the former for a confident, and admitted the latter for a Companion. Of Civilians he picked out Pomponius Saturninus, Arrianus, and what others were the most celebrated Oracles of the Law. To these he opened his Soul, and was as privy to all their concerns. He loved their persons, courted their society, and espoused their interest, without any dirty reserves of craft or design.  
His Estate was so conspicuous, and his conditions so endearing, that he was sure to be courted from the selfishness of a single life, an alteration of which was possibly more a compliance with the importunity of others, than any hurry of his own inclinations; howeverhe had choice of proffers and judgement to select the best. Of his first Wife we have but an obscure mention; his second was Calphurnia, whom Dowry and Parentage rendered an equal match: Her he admitted to his heart as well as bed, and for an instance of his fondness, has left us a pair of uxorious yet chaste Epistles. It was the only misfortune he ever complained of, that he could have no issue by either of them.  
This unhappiness he contrived by the most availing method to repair; for indeed (as far as this side of vanity would allow) he seemed in nothing to betray a stronger impetus of desire, than to have his name and memory outlive his funeral, and therefore he got not only a grateful celebration from Martial, and by a hint of his own an honourable mention from Tacitus; but tempted eternity with many of his own Works, which deserved a longer duration, than most of them have met with. Beside his Greek Tragedy, and Elegies in his Voyage from Syria; he wrote a Tract of Hendecasyllables. Another of Demonstrative Orations. Some reflections on the self-murder of Helvidius. A Catalogue of illustrious Men: (which yet some have thrown upon C. Nepos, and others (perhaps with most of justice) ascribe to Aurelius' Victor.) A Collection of Epistles, and a Panegyric on the Emperor. Of which the three last only are rescued from that eating oblivion, which has swallowed the other.  
When he was cloyed with the flatteries of the Town, he would oft retire to his Country seats, of which he had two most deliciously situate, the one his Laurentine, the other his Tuscan Farm; where in imitation of the primitive Consuls, and Dictatours, he read Nature in the cultivations of husbandry; and thought his Gentility so little solid hereby, that he gave a Wagon for his Coat of Arms.  
We have better proofs how he lived, than when he died: We have a moral certainty for the one, but must be content with conjecture for the other. His last Epistles seem to be those from Pontus to the Emperor, and after his giving up this honourable trust, we hear nothing considerable of his actions from himself, or any other Historian. It is recorded that his Royal Patron resigned to death, about the year from our Saviour's birth (if Eusebius compute aright) 119. whom, it is likely, he had no great ambition to survive; and therefore we may presume he left the World soon after the loss of that comfort, which had been most effectual to have detained him in it. Yet some (I fancy on more presumptuous grounds) date his death in the 12 of Trajan's Reign. It is sure that Eusebius then mentions the decease of a Pliny, but implies it of the Seniour.  
After this prospect of his actions and employs, it will be a piety toward his ashes, and a diversion to the virtuous, to present a more apparent view of his personal endowments: Especially, since from an easy pursuit of his own discoveries, there lies such an open road to meterials; that there wants nothing, but a natural disposure, and a naked repetition.  
In Rhetoric it is enough that he was Scholar to Quintilian, whose precepts he so well digested, that all his after composures were but a varied rehearsal of his Master's instructions. He gained not only a fluent style, and a plausible delivery, which are but the Mechanism of Oratory; but he had such an accurate Idea of things, knew so well their apt representment by words, and understood so completely the influence of each period on the soul; that he still married his expressions to his argument, always reconciled his Auditory to his subject, and never spoke, but to those passions he raised. He could instruct a Friend, that an invention copious and a free elocution might haply be the talents of an illiterate confidence; but an orderly disposure, a due turn of figures, a critical mode of transition, and such other secrets of art, were only acquirements of the laborious and learned. Yet it was one of his Maxims, that Use was the best Rhetorician, he having known many, who had neither parts nor reading, yet by assiduous practice, had talked often, till they spoke well.  
He was such an Artist at the variance of expressions, that almost in the same breath, he could be fuller and more acute, grave and flourishing, so that his cadencies made a dissonance of Music being always unequal. His endeavours herein, by confession to a Friend, were that he might so contrive it, that by a different turning of periods he would have somewhat to affect the most singular relish of each peculiar palate. Yet where his subject required a steady, even pace, he would never range, but keep devoutly to each Scheme of language, which is only proper to each distinct composition. Undoubtly he was an accurate Master of all styles, and seemed most happy in the most difficult, that of sublime; for the exercise of which he had that argument, which the great Longinus implied to be most suitable, Panegyric: Wherein he completely shunned those vices, which so nearly adjoin, affectátion and flatness. He could fly without soaring, and again walk without creeping. He could reach where it was proper, and stoop where it was more becoming. Laying down this as a measure and remark, that as in picture the darker shadowing sets off no less, than the gaudier strokes; so in Oratory the seeming blurs, as well as flourishes, do proportion and adorn. In others works (where he could prevail on his good Nature to censure) he would check the presumptuous, and chastise the coward, yet of the two, he more inclined to excuse the bold and daring, than the timorous and wary writer; and would forgive the too licentious torrent of a lofty, sooner than the stagnating shallows of a mean, style: Illustrating his judgement herein by this most ingenious Metaphor, that it was safer indeed to tread the humble valley, than to climb the craggy mount; yet a slip was more unpardonable beneath, than a fall from above. And therefore on a cold indifferent Orator of his own times he passed this facete jirk, that he had no fault but one, and that was, that he had no fault. His meaning he implied to be, that he had better have mounted, though with some tumbles, than tamely have swept the ground for a caution of falling no lower. Or that a bold occasional sally, though with misadventure, had been more laudable, than a continual sculk within the bounds of a safer refuge.  
He was inclinable, yet not addicted, to Poetry, which tendency some of his graver Friends stomached as a levity; and were so kind, as to let him know their dislike. In reply whereto he was soon provided of excuse; which yet he would not urge from the nature of the thing itself; either its innocence as a diversion; or its use, as an exaltment of the fancy: but he fled to example, as the modester, if not the more justifying method: And rehearsed a Catalogue of noble Romans, who, in their vacation from more serious affairs, had set the Precedent: And with such company to err he thought no scandal: Especially since they were so eminent, that to imitate their recreations was no less a credit, than it was a duty to copy after their graver employs.  
He was so inquisitive of past, and so well acquainted with his own times; that he was accomplished no doubtas much for a Politician, as his Uncle was for a Natural Historian. And to this Province he was invited by one, who knew his abilities. Him he answers by Letter, and first confesses it a good office to record the illustrious; betrays a desire of perpetuating himself, by the eternising of others: gives a taste of his being a Critic in Historick style; is cautious what times were most convenient to venture on, Ancient or Modern; the first were obscure, and more hard to account for; the latter were ticklish, and more hazardous to expose. However diligence should supply the one difficulty, and a good conscience the other: He would have the industry to be exact, and the courage to be faithful. He therefore refers the choice to his Friend; and as he determined, he implies a resolve for either undertaking. But whether his Friend were too coy to impose him a task, or he himself was diverted from prosecuting his first intentions; we hear of nothing to this purpose, but a small Tract of Men famous for Military and Civil Government, which yet (if ourfaith hang upon some Critics) we must not believe to be his, and indeed the imputation need not be envied any other.  
In whatever he wrote, he was correct almost to superstition. He would not thrust, but send; not pour, but drop into the world all the messages of his pen. And indeed that nothing should come from him, as finished, but what was absolute and unexceptionable, is the less wonder, if we reflect what a judiciary trial all his pieces stood the verdict of, before they were dismissed to a good deliverance. For whatever he composed, he first himself perused and reviewed: Then to bring the cadence and euphony to the test of his ears, he sounded it distinctly; and lest his own voice might flatter him, he got it to be pronounced by another in his own Audience. After this he advised with two or three particular Friends: He than augments the club, and engaged them all to except: Their corrections he again propounds to some few of the most judicious; and as they agreed, he altered and amended. After this discipline he rehearsed in a full Assembly; When upon the issue of their free reproof, and his own new discovery, he gave the completing strokes, and left them proof against the virulence of teeth and tongue: Professing always to consider, what a concern of moment it was to deliver any thing (as he phrased it) into the hands of the public, and therefore he thought it a prudence often to consult many, about what he desired might always please all. This practice of imparting our attempts to so severe a scrutiny would either the ingenuousness of Friends, or the submission of writers, allow to be revived: The Press would not be an Amsterdam of medley whimsies, or be abortive of so many crude and shapeless lumps; the modest would be confirmed, the conceited restrained; and so many men's labours would not be among their sins, to be repent of.  
The entertainment of his best Visitants was this reading to them some of his last composures, wherein their good humour thought him neither fulsome nor affected; but took it as the most gentile treat, the most complaisant reception. Yet in this cursory rehearsal to his Friends, he was sensible, he lay under this disadvantage, that his crudest fancies might soon raise the attention, and feed the appetite, of his hearers: While his best digested thoughts were either from inadvertence passed by unobserved, or for want of recollection left unrelished. The ear and eye being such different judges of composures, that an applauding Auditor would be a reading Critic, and what was heard with oscitance and disgust might on review have all its just features discovered. His intent in these recitements (as before hinted) was not to bribe an approbation, but to invite, and even to extort, a censure; being patient at contradictions, and thankful for reproof. Tho' he would never take another's judgement, till he had reconciled it with his own; well knowing, that to lean too much on the sentiments of others betrays a want of strength to support ourselves. As in our own language, the reason why a soft head is the denoting Metaphor of a little wit, is because the being too ductile, waxen, and impressive to the Dictates of others is the property of good nature in its worst acceptation.  
Though so much delighted with society, he was averse to that brutish cement of it, drinking. All his invitations were to consults, not frolicks, and he had no great opinion of those parts, which must be oiled into Eloquence, and flushed into any tolerable delivery of their thoughts. He was sober to such a degree, that even a Poet could remark and praise this abstinence, a virtue those Wits are seldom very forward to commend. Thus Martial, in the Embassy of his Muse to wait on him at his house in the Esquilian Mount, gives her this caution,  

— Ne tempore non tuo disertam,  
Pulses ebria januam, videto:  
Totos dat tetricae dies Minervae, etc.   

Go soberly attend his Gate,  
And for admission humbly wait;  
He's chained whole days to toilsome Books—   
This is that Martial, from whom a late smooth Biographer, in a compare with the preferred Catullus does disingenuously detract, and puts as wide a difference betwixt them in their mode of writing, as between the sordid drollery of a Buffoon, and the ingenious raillery of a Gentleman. A bluntness that nothing will excuse, but his partiality to Catullus for the dedication 
* To Cornelius Nepos.  of his Poems. Catullus, who may be allowed indeed to be more soft and passionate, and the better tuned for Elegy: But for the lucky turn and smartness of Epigram, at least for the terminating a thought by a surprising word, Martial had much happier hits than he, or any other Rival.  
It was one of his rules to read much, rather than many. And though his voluminous Uncle had bequeathed him this Memento, That there was no piece so trivial, or insignificant, but from whence somewhat of pertinence might be extracted: Yet he thought it more compendious to glean where most lay scattered, and he would willingly fall on no Author, where it was like his appetite or his patience might be affronted.  
He was so cautious, that he scarce ever entertained any Notion, which he found reason to dismiss; yet if haply through too kind a reliance on the wisdom of others, or too hasty a sealing up his own thoughts, he had imbibed any sentiments, which he found afterward noxious, or unsavoury; he would reject it with as much abhorrence, as he had with innocence received it. For he well knew it was so far from being a brand of inconstancy, sometime to profess an alteration of judgement, that it was the best token of a generous and unenslaved reason. For otherwise were a fixed adherence to all conceits the only test of a rational head, a blundring Bigot should outvie the most settled Philosopher, and obstinacy would be the alone right and truth.  
He was as sedentary at his Books, as his more active avocations would possibly allow. Yet he would at any time intermit his Studies for the more edifying entertainment of Friends, whose visits he was so far from repining at as chargeable, or impertinent, that he courted them in retirements, and could dispense with them amidst the most urging affairs; being so exact an improver both of solitude and company that he made these the most comfortable stages, to think with himself, and to talk with a Friend.  
This made his acquaintance so much coveted by the ingenious, that with a great deal of comfort he could tell a correspondent, None had a love for Learning, but what had a kindness for him. Nay he had so wide a Soul and so open of access, that all his acquaintance were immediately familiars, and all his familiars friends. Yet though numerous, they were all select; they must have parts as well as humours, to recommend them; and therefore he was in the estimate of their deserts as impartial, as integrity and circumspection could possibly provide: Though perhaps his charity might sometime trespass on his judgement. However he was more coy in the choice, than in the continuance of a Friend. He would pry into infirmities before he entered any League, but after a confederacy he would wink and look beyond. And certainly if in the offices of friendship he was at all to blame, it was for too much of good nature, too fond an indulgence: And this one acquaints him he had heard him censured for; while as a bold Delinquent, he frankly owns the charge, and hugs the fault, replying there could be little of guilt where goodness erred; it was not only a charity toward others, but a pleasure to himself, to believe the best: Some might think it grave to reprove, and judicious to correct, but for his part he should rest content, there could be no weakness to love in excess. Though it is possible he was afterward brunted with some unlucky occasion to repent of this humour, for he once with feelingness confessed, it had been an error (though an honest one) in many otherwise discreet that by too great a sondness they overvalued the merits of a friend.  
He scorned Ceremony, and was above Compliment. He might be squeamish at engagements, but was greedy at performance. His only pressure was to lie under a promise without opportunity to discharge it. When he petitioned Votes for his Friend Naso, he so heartily espouses his Cause, that he assures, The glory of Success should be entirely his Friend's, but the scandal of Miscarriage purely his own. He never let his good Offices be screwed or wrung from him, but whenever a craving occasion required, he would not stay the formality of Address, but gloried to prevent the ask. Nay he would resent it as a grievance to be entreated, where the relief of an indigent Friend was concerned. Thus to a Person, who by Letter advised him of the distress of Corellia, and importuned him to appear in her defence, he returned this ingenious answer, You inform me of the hard fortune of Corellia, and entreat me to patronise her Cause; For your Information I thank you, but your entreaties I am angry at: To have notice was necessary, that I might have the opportunity of doing good, but 'tis an affront to be prayed and urged on to that, which I am always in charity obliged to do. He would therefore solicit for those that sought, and as often thrust on those, who shrunk and recoiled: Though indeed he would allow for the behaviour of each, and remember that in the discharge of any promise, there is a different judgement to be made of him, who forwardly offers his assistence, and him, who is unwillingly importuned to accept; the first is unpardonable except he do as he ought, but the latter excusable if he do but as he can. He thought it no better method to secure a gratitude for past obligations than to feed them with a fresh supply. Yet he would neither make his bounty cheap, nor himself lavish; and therefore seldom repeated his good turns, but where a provident use of the former had given in caution for as prudent a manage of the future. To all his good Offices he added this gentile endearing sanction, that he would never be his own Echo, never be a Herald of his own favours: Nay if they were slighted or abused, he would glibly swallow the affront; and even the dirtiest ingratitude he would have no courage to upbraid. He framed this Virtue into a Maxim, That those who loved to dwell on a rehearsal of their good deeds, might be suspected to have done well, that they might after talk of it; rather than seem only to talk of it, because they had before done well.  
He was more especially a Maecenas to the studies and endeavours of hopeful young Men. And this he thought a necessary as well as generous charity: For he observed that no parts were so extraordinary as very soon to appear with advantage, unless countenanced and recommended by some powerful and peculiar Patron. Growing abilities without such incitements might either languish into sloth, or after some ineffectual struggle die into despair.  
Though he was scarce ever shockt by any one misfortune, but that continued one of being childless, yet he betrayed a Soul, that could bear their assault, and less dreaded their approach. It being one of his own Lessons that to endure a misery was more tolerable than to expect it, for of sufferance there would be once an end, but never of fear; we suffering no more than what has actually happened, but fearing whatever may possibly fall out.  
He would sooner condemn his own than even examine others actions; or if at any time he happed to be inquisitive, it was neither an itch of intermeddling nor the petulance of exposing a nakedness, but an honest intention, a cordial humanity. However he would not judge of any occurrences either by their appearance or by their issue. The observation being first his, that with a great deal of hard usage the same counsels were oft esteemed rash or deliberate as they thrived or miscarried, and the very same undertake from a difference of event were extolled for discreet because prosperous, or vilified for imprudent because unlucky.  
How easy he was to remit the offences or excuse the infirmities of his Neighbour, needs no other proof than a recital of that great Lesson, which he lived no doubt as well as taught That we should so forgive others, as if we daily committed the same faults ourselves; and yet so to pass judgement on ourselves, as if we would never forgive he same fault in another. Than which (abate from the exalted Morals of him who came to fulfil the Law) there is not among all Authors any one Aphorism, that tends more to a just, honest, nay devout and religious life. And indeed he was very sententious in many sober and pious directions: This one instance is very remarkable, upon the recovery of a friend, reflecting on the proneness to resolves of amendment on a sickbed, and the neglect of executing such intentions upon a return of strength to perform them; he said he could epitomise whole Volumes of Philosophy into this one Memento, That in health we remember to be such as in sickness we promised to be.  
His integrity was so guarded that he kept it no less free from fault than from suspicion too: Which in an envious age had not been so feasible, if the motives to this Virtue had been a Stoical scorn of pelf, a pride of being above the reach of bribes, or at best a prudential abstinence to escape the penalties of Law, and not (what they really were) an honest mind and a well principled conscience. So that he not only abhorred the extortion of compacts and conditional rewards; but where engaged as a Judge he refused the very presents of his friends, and rejected their customary annual gifts, though he knew no sinister design of the donors, and could have accepted without biassing his own intentions. So rigorous would our Roman be, and so far would even our Heathen abstain from all appearance of evil.  
In a word without flattery or ostentation, he was Learning's Patron, virtue's Friend, his Prince's Favourite, and even Nature's Darling: For though it be easy to observe, that there have been no persons so unexceptionably accomplished, but who have had some allay of failures to curb that conceitedness, which might be apt to arise from a sense of their otherwise complete qualifications: Yet as far as we can learn, our great Man had no one imperfection, that either the candidness of a friend could ever allege, or his own Modesty betray, which yet were such impartial Censors of his actions and endowments that had there been the least handle, we are sure to have had it offered by the suggestion of others or by the confession of himself.   

PLINY'S Panegyric.  
My Lords,  
1. 'T WAS well and wisely ordered by our provident Forefathers, that as our actions, so our speeches should both be ushered in by the attendance of Prayer: Since weak Mortals can undertake nothing with any prospect of success, without the favour, and countenance of the Divine Being's. Which pious and commendable custom to whom more proper, than to me, who am a Consul, or when more seasonable and requisite than while by the command of the Senate, and Authority of the Commonwealth, we are encouraged to a solemn return of thanks to the best of Princes? For what indeed is a more acceptable, more generous gift of Heaven, than a Prince who is Just, Religious and in all accomplishments allied to those Gods, who gave him? So that were it yet a matter of debate, whether Kings owed their Original to chance or compact, or not rather to the more creditable title of Divine Right: were this (I say) any subject for contest; yet that our Prince at least may justly claim a Divine Right is beyond all colour of dispute. For he was instated in his Empire not by any blind hit of fate or fortune, but by the more regular conduct of an alwise providence, and brought, as it were, by the hand of God himself to be happily Crowned and enthroned before the Holy Altar, that place, which (if any) is a heaven upon earth; for it is there that Omnipotence does more especially reside. Upon this account duty and devotion prompt me to address myself to you, most potent Jove, the best and greatest God, heretofore the Founder, and still the Preserver of our Roman Empire, to beg of you, so to direct my heart and tongue, that I may deliver nothing unbecoming a Consul to speak, nothing improper for a Senate to hear, and nothing unworthy of that Prince, who is to be the Subject of my following Discourse: Grant that in all I mention, I may pay a respective deference to freedom, faithfulness and truth; and let this thankful acknowledgement of the benefits of a good Prince seem as far from flattery, as it really is from force.  
2. In the first place, I think it ought to be the caution, not only of a public Magistrate, but of every inferior Subject, to speak nothing of our Prince, which may in the least measure be applied to another. Let us therefore banish such expressions which a just resentment did heretofore extort: Let us make no wont complaints, because we labour under no wont grievance: let us not in public proclaim the usual harangues, because in private we whisper not the usual Oppressions. Let the altered tenor of our speeches betray the happy change of times; and from the form of our thanks let it now appear, that we can dare to speak of our Prince, as of no more than a Man, though his Predecessors have been heretofore fawned into the title of Gods. We speak not now of a Tyrant, but of a tender Patriot, not of an imperious Lord, but an indulgent Father of his people. His humility bends him into a compliance of being thought as one of us (and herein does he commence the more our Superior, because his modesty would stoop him into no more than our equal) nor does he less forget that he himself is a man than that he is advanced to Reign over men. Let us therefore become sensible of our own happiness, and let our improved Loyalty render us in some measure worthy of such a blessing: While we honestly reflect how much more a cheerful obedience we owe to such Supreme Governors who assert the liberties, rather than to those who attempt the slavery of their people. Rome indeed has had her choice of Princes, but with the same joy that she was wont to commend one for beautiful, she admires this for valiant, and with the same acclamations she was wont to extol the voice of one, and gesture of another, in this she adores his Piety, his Temperance, and his Clemency. To what straits and difficulties, alas, are we driven? We must needs waver in suspense whether, amidst the transports of joy, we shall rather insist on his Grandeur, and Godlike Majesty, or on his obliging sweetness, his affable deportment, and most endearing courtesy. Now, what more just, what more becoming than that surname of Best, which our Senate did jointly confer upon him? And which the extravagant pride and ambition of former Princes hath made his peculiar title. Farther, how reasonable, how equitable is it, we should conspire to make him happy, who hath already made us so? Thus let him do, and this let him hear, as sensible that we would not speak these things, except they were the same he had first acted: And yet at the rehearsal of them, his modesty constrains him to reply in tears, being sensible, the commendation is directed to the Man, not to the Prince.  
3. The same temper we observed in our first unpremeditate shouts of joy, the same let us full maintain in this more studied delivery of our thanks. For we may well suppose that no gratitude can be more sincere and acceptable, than where it is expressed in the nearest resemblance to those Extempore acclamations, which have no leisure to be otherwise than natural and unfeigned. For my own part, I shall endeavour through the whole Sequel of my speech to make a due allowance to the modesty and moderation of our Prince. Nor shall I less consider what will make him blush to hear, than what the merit of his virtues might claim to be spoke. An excellent and rare accomplishment this in a Prince, that in the return of thanks I am now prepared to offer, there is more danger he should think me too lavish than too thirsty in his commendation: That I give no offence this way must be the greatest of my care, this my only caution. For it is indeed otherwise easy to return thanks to a Person who really deserves it, there being no danger that when I mention his humanity he should suspect I give a rub at his pride; when his thirst, that I glance on his luxury; when his clemency, that I slily upbraid his cruelty; when his generousness, that I reflect on his avarice; when his temperance, that I jirk his excess; when his industry, that I condemn his sloth: Or lastly, when I proclaim his valour, that I do but tax his cowardice. Nor do I fear the rallying myself into frown or favour according as I shall be too profuse, or too sparing in my Character of him. Lastly, I shall guide my measures by this observation, that the Gods themselves are better atoned by the holiness and innocency, than by the accurate and neatly dressed petitions of their respective Votaries, and sooner accept of him who brings to their Altars an humble and an honest heart, than of him, who accosts them with a well penned harangue.  
4. But an Order of Senate must be obeyed, whereby, (for the public good) it was reasonably decreed that by the mouth of the Consul, under the title of Thanks, good Princes might be reminded of what they have, and bad ones informed what they ought to have, done. Which ceremony is at this time more especially requisite, because the modesty of our Prince has discountenanced all private, and would have waved their public thanks, but that he is so obliging, as not to resuse what the Senate has so unanimously resolved. In either (most sacred Sir) you acquit yourself to glory and admiration, as well that elsewhere you will not accept of thanks as that here you will. The honour hereby done you is far from the quest and aim of your own ambition, it is the free and undesired grant of those, who confer it on you. Your part herein is no more than a compliance with our importunate requests; and the compulsion is on your side to hearken to your deserts, not on ours to proclaim 'em. My Lords, It has often cost me many a silent and serious thought, what excellent qualifications that Person ought to be endowed with, who is invested with the Government of Land and Sea, impowered with the management of Peace and War. And yet after a creating to myself the Idea of one the most absolutely accomplished for the discharge of this Royal Office, I could never (no not in wish) propose a person more excellent, than him we are now infinitely obliged with. One indeed has glistered in War, but then he has grown mouldy in Peace: Another has gained repute in his Robes, but lost it in his Armour: One has frowned his Subjects into an awful respect, another has wheedled them into love by a popular submission: A public miscarriage has robbed one of the credit of his happy acquitments in private: Another by a home misfortune has sullied that esteem, he bravely gained abroad. In a word, there was never yet any, whose Virtues were not eclipsed by the interposure of some near aboding Vice. But in our Prince what unclouded rays of glory meet? What an unallayed mixture of all that is commendable? His affability abates nothing from his Majestic port and Grandeur; his obliging freedom does no-way trespass on his becoming gravity, his candour and condescension do not at all lessen the claims of his due respect. Add to this his manly height and proportioned strength of body, the ornament of a black hair, the advantages of a stern and commanding look, the perfection of a found and healthy middle age, and as an express favour of Heaven, the budding appearance of some few grey hairs, as the ensign of Wisdom, rather than the effect o● declining years. What can all these import less than a Prince, hmned by Nature's self in her best adorning colours?  
5. And such indeed ought he to have been, who climbed his Throne not through a Sea of blood, who purchased a Crown not by Rapine and Massacre, but by the calm mercy of appeased Heaven, and the innocent method of an universal consent. Is there no distinction to be made between such a Prince, whom humane means shall ordain, and such a one, whom Divine Providence does more immediately appoint? Providence (Great Sir) that was most eminently concerned in your happy advance, as was abundantly evidenced by a remarkable instance at your first going General to the Imperial Army: Other Princes have drawn credulous Presages from the blood of Sacrifices, the flight of Birds, or some such like whims of Superstition: But you were encouraged by a more assuring token; for going to pay your accustomed Devotions at the Holy Altar, when for greater privacy you had shut yourself within the Temple, the crowds that stood waiting at the outer doors, ignorant of your being within, loudly saluted, as was intended, Jove, but as the event showed, you, under the Title of Emperor: And so indeed was the Omen understood by all, though you yourself were unwilling it should be so interpreted. Your Modesty inclined you to refuse the Empire, but your refusal convinced the world that you the better deserved it: You were hereupon to be compelled, though compelled indeed you could not have been, had not the public good, and the safety of these Nations enforced you to a charitable compliance; you seeming so generous, that you would not have accepted of a Kingdom, if it had been barely to govern, and not rather to have redeemed and preserved it. So that I believe those tumults and troubles which preceded your happy Reign, were therefore Ordained by Heaven, to make your long-opprest people more sensible of the comforts enjoyed under the gracious insluence of so good a Prince: For as a calm air, and a smooth Sea are never more welcome than after the bustling allarum's of storms and tempests; so may we well conceive those gusts of Seditious rage and fury, which for some time obstructed your settlement, were purposely contrived to prepare a better relish to those joys your peaceful Reign affords. The dispensations of Providence being so ordered, that Prosperity may lecture us how to bear our Misfortune, and Afflictions instruct us how to prise our happiness, the secret springs whereof God does so industriously conceal, that the events of good and bad do not seldom result from their quite contrary appearances.  
6. It was indeed an eternal blot to the Age it was acted in, it was a wounding blow to this Nation, that a Sovereign 
* Nerva by 〈◊〉 Sedition 〈◊〉 ●…sperius, 〈…〉 n of 〈◊〉 Praetorian Guards.  Prince, a Father of his People should be assaulted, seized, imprisoned, stripped by his own too-yielding goodness, of the power of saving or relieving his Friends, and robbed of that Prerogative wherein Sovereignty does chiefly consist, the doing nothing by force or restraint. Yet if all these Misfortunes were designed but as a purchase for your enriching Reign, I may be bold to say, that had the rates been much higher, they had scarce been equal to the value of so inestimate a Prize. But farther yet, Military Discipline was let sink into disorderly and corrupt practices, that your Skill and Conduct might amend and reinforce it. Unheard-of Examples were brought in to be balanced by the most regular Proceedings of your Reign: And in short, a Prince was forced to Condemn those he would willingly have saved, that we might have a Prince whose will can never be forced. You deserved to have been Adopted long before you actually were so, though indeed had your Adoption been sooner, the blessing of your Reign must have needs been less. You waited for that convenience of time, wherein the acceptance of a Crown was rather a Courtesy to others, than a kindness to yourself. The trembling state fled for Sanctuary to your protecting Bosom, the ruinous and just falling Empire was by Nerva's choice assigned to be upheld by you. From distant Countries you were called home, and importuned to comply with the being Adopted: As Commanders employed in Foreign Service are upon urgent occasions recalled to divert their Arms to the more seasonable defence of their own Country. Thus in one and the same action the mutual Gallantry of Father and Son do interchangeably appear, he bestows on you a Crown, you return it to him better guarded, and more confirmed. You are the first who could ever make a requital equal to such a Present, the obligation whereof you have so fully discharged, that the giver does even yet remain your debtor; For by his imparting to you a share of the Empire, you become only the more thoughtful and concerned, he the more quiet and secure.  
7. O rare and unheard-of passage to a Throne! It was not your own Ambition, not your own Jealousies, but another's desire, another's fear that pushed you on to the Imperial Dignity: and though you seem to have attained the highest pitch of Honour, yet the condition you exchanged for this, was indeed more happy, it being the most desirable comfort to live a Subject under the best of Princes. You were admitted to a relieving participation of his cares and troubles, rather than a dignifying share of his power and greatness: Nor did a bright, and smiling, but the black, and clouded face of affairs induce you to accept the offer. You interposed to bear a cheerful part in the support of the Empire, when the other sustainer of it was now weary of the pressure. There was no Alliance, no Relation between the Adopter and the Person Adopted, save that both were best befiting, the one to make, the other to be made choice of. You therefore were Adopted, not as others, for the sake, or by the interest of a Wise, your Adopter not being bias by the relation of a Father-in Law, but disengaged and impartial as a generous Prince; and the Divine Nerva is in no other sense your Parent, than as he is the common Father of us all. Nor indeed in Elective Kingdoms is it fit that a Successor should be otherwise assumed. Were you, Sir, to transfer from yourself to another this vast legacy of the Roman Empire, would you look for an Heir no farther than your own Bed; and must the Successor to all your Imperial Dignity be no better than what happens to be found within the narrow limits of your own House? Would you not rather bestow some pains in a search through the whole City, and take him for your Son, him for your next Heir, who is best accomplished, and most like those Gods, he must one day represent? He who is to govern all aught sure to be chosen out of all; for you leave not a Lord of your private Family, that you must needs assign him, who comes next in blood, but a supreme Governor of a freeborn People. It were stiff and Tyrannical, nay absurd, not to Adopt him who is born to be an Emperor, should he not be Adopted. This was the course the great, the good Nerva took, well thinking there could be no difference between Generation and Election, if Children were not Adopted with better Judgement than they are begot. Though indeed it is the humour of Subjects more patiently to admit the unhappy issue, than the ill choice, of Princes.  
8. This danger therefore Nerva did most cautiously avoid, and trusted not to the shallow advice of Men, but took counsel from the Gods themselves. While not in a private Chamber, but an open Temple, not before the Nuptial Bed, but the Holy Altar of Jupiter, (that best and greatest God) did the Ceremony of your Adoption pass, that Adoption from whence we date our lives, our liberties, our peace, our joy, our all. The Gods were indeed (and well might they be) proud of appropriating this honour to themselves, this was their project, their enterprise: Nerva was no more than a Trustee in their behalf, he in Adopting, and you in being Adopted, did both but show your submission to the Dictates of Divine Pleasure. A Laurel was brought from Pannonia, the Gods so ordering it, that the inauguration of a victorious Prince might be attended with the Omen of Conquest and success: This the Emperor Nerva stuck in the bosom of Jupiter, when on the sudden being elevated in some kind of Divine transport, before a numerous Assembly of Men and Gods, he pronounced you his Adopted Son, that is, the staff of his declining years, the support of his pressing Empire. Then as if he had been disburdened of the load of Government, how did he hug himself in a lightsome rest and ease? (Nor indeed is there much difference between the perfect resignation of a Crown, and the taking a Partner into Sovereignty, save that this last is more difficult and less practicable than the other.) He now leans entirely on your shoulders, and by their strength upholds both himself and the Empire: Your youth, your vigour seem to recover his, and upon the influence of your power all Factions, all Tumults are gauged and eternally silent. Though this happiness, it must be confessed, is owing not to a bare Adoption, but to the efficacy of that Person, who is so Adopted. So that had Nerva made choice of any other, he had come short of this happy, this blessed event. Most of us may yet remember when an 
* The Adoption of Piso by Galba.  Adoption was not the appeasment, but the rise and occasion of an uproar and Sedition. We might now again have felt the same dismal effects, if the Election had fell on any, but on you. That Emperor, it is true, who by too great remissness has fooled away his due respect and esteem, must ask his Subjects leave to dispose of his Empire: But your Election was free and absolute without noise or murmur as much, no question, out of awe and regardful dread of you, as out of reverence to that Prince, who declared you Elect. You were admitted to be a Son, a Caesar, an Emperor, a Colleague of the Tribunitian Power, all these dignities heaped on you at the same time, which a late natural 
† Vespasian on his eldest Son Titus.  Father durst only by degrees bestow upon one of his own Sons.  
9 A signal instance this of your admirable prudence, that you please and oblige not only when Successor but while Companion and Copartner in the Empire. For Successor indeed you must have been even against your own will, but half sharer you need not have been content with, if your ambition would have otherwise advised. Can posterity ever believe that the Son of a Patrician, a Consular, Triumphal Father, one who was himself at the head of a stout, a numerous, and an obedient Army, was not by that Army created Emperor? He, who while he commanded in Germany had conferred on him by our Senate the title of Germanicus: Can it be imagined that one in these powerful circumstances should make no attempt upon the Empire, that he should take no other method toward his own advance, than that of serving and obeying? For obedience, Caesar, was your only ambition, and it was out of duty alone that you complied with the being made a Prince: Never more Loyally approving yourself a Subject. than when you submitted to the summons of being ordained a Sovereign. When absent and ignorant of the honours done you, made Germanicus, Caesar, Emperor, and yet after all this preferment, still as submissive and humble as a private man. It will seem strange that you could not know, whether ever you should be an Emperor, ●ay you actually were so, before ever you knew it. And as soon as the messenger of your advancement came, your reception of the news betrayed, that you had rather have remained in the quality you were in, if it had been manners or duty to have refused the honour. But must not a Subject have obeyed his Sovereign, an Ambassador his Prince, a Son his Father? Where then were all discipline? Where were that long practised Tradition delivered down to us from our Ancestors, That whatever were enjoyed by Royal command, should without farther dispute be cheerfully performed. And what if he should have ordered you from Province to Province, from the service of one War to the task of another? Think, by the same authority he sent you out to the conduct of an Army, by the same he recalls you to the acceptance of a Crown. Nor is there much difference between his commissioning you a General, and his ordaining you an Emperor, save that in this last your obedience is the more creditable, because The glory of being dutiful is so much the more, as it is exercised in any thing contrary to the bent of a man's own inclination.  
10. It confirmed and advanced the authority of him, who commanded, that his authority had so lately been encroacht upon. Which blessed you with an opportunity of being then more seasonably Loyal, when others were more basely factious. The command of the Prince was backed with the Votes of the Senate, and consent of the people. It was not only the single judgement of Nerva, but a concurrent and universally approved Election. He only (as an honour due to his Imperial dignity) led the way and did that which all first, would soon have done, had not his doing prevented 'em. Nor indeed would the World have been ravished with joy at the event, if they had not jointly both allowed and applauded the design before ever it was put in execution. But with how discreet a temper, good Gods, did you behave yourself amidst all these caresses of fortune? An Emperor in Style, in Effigies, in Statue, but in Modesty, Vigilance, Industry, an Officer, a Deputy, a Common Soldier: While in a becoming posture you marched before your Colours, led up your Troops, and wished no other benefit might accrue by your adoption, than the honour of acquitting yourself a dutiful and obedient Son, in which state of subjection you desired a long continuance, a long scene of glory. Providence had exalted you to the first place, yet could you contentedly have demeaned yourself to the second, and there have remained much longer, yet longer, to a good old age. Nor while another shared with you in the title of Emperor, were you willing yourself to appear more than a private Subject. Heaven heard your Prayers which were no other than consistent with the good and happiness of that just and pious old man, who the Gods wisely removed to a better World, that, after so Divine and consummate an action, he might have no leisure to misemploy his pains in any trifle of mortal concern. For There is this respect due to an unimitable exploit that as it is the best, so it ought to be the last of all our earthly undertake; and therefore ought the Author immediately to be deified, it being likely the World will inquire, whether he, were not a God, when he did it. Thus he who had no better claim to the title of common parent than by being yours, being great in same, when he had lived a while to see how well you could bear up under the weight of an Empire, left you to the World, and the World to you: Leaving us sensible of our greater loss, because in you he provided that our loss should be the less.  
11. When dead, you, as a respectful Son, first honour him with your tears, then with a Temple. Not herein imitating those former precedents, which have afforded indeed examples of like Piety, but upon far different inducements. Tiberius' deified Augustus, but it was only his ambition to entail a Godhead on the Crown. Nero past the same compliment on Claudius, but it was only to expose him. Titus did as much for Vespasian and Domitian for Titus, but the first, that he might appear the Son, this latter the Brother of a God. You have enroled your Father among the Stars, not to strike an awe into the people, not to put an affront on his fellow Deities, not to derive an honour on yourself, but because you devoutly thought him more than humane. It abates much from the glory of this honour, when it is done by those, whose pride thinks themselves as really Gods as those, whom by this ceremony they make so. And though you have consecrated to his Divinity an Altar with its due ornaments, and a Priest to Officiate at it, yet have you proved him a God in nothing more, than that you yourself are so much like him: For in a Prince who dies after a settled appointment of his Heir, the most convincing Argument of his Divinity is a good Successor. Has the dazelling immortality of your Father blinded you into any pride or conceitedness? Do you copy after the vain and affected humour of our modern kinsmen to deified Heroes? Or do you not rather imitate those more generous souls of the Ancients, who bravely founded this Empire, which our enemies have but of late found courage to assault, though now they dare so, we have no surer proof of their flight or conquest, than, the pageantry of their triumphs. This, makes 'em assume some spirit, and emboldens 'em to shake off that yoke, they think they have now long enough laboured under; nor would they contend only for redemption of their own liberties, but would quite change the Scene, and bring us to our turn of being slaves, accepting of no truce, but upon even terms, and prescribing those conditions, they ought only to receive.  
12. But now all return to their due bounds of obedience, and to an ambition of performing what their betters command. For they now see a Roman General of the true old stamp, of the same mettle with those, who made good their dignifying titles by Fields strowed with Murdered Carcases, and Seas tinged with the blood of their enemies. So that now we are entreated to accept of hostages, and not, as formerly, forced to purchase 'em. Nor do we now on hard terms and unreasonable rates buy the credit of coming off Victor's. They humbly beg, they oft petition, and according as we think good, we either grant or deny both, we keep our Grandeur, in both we exert our authority, if we grant, they are thankful, if we deny, they durst not repine. They durst not, knowing that you have tamed a surly 
* The Germane's.  people, even in that season of the year, which was most beneficial to them, and most injurious to us, when Danube's banks kept a passable intercourse by Ice, and could transport whole Armies on the bridge that winter made, when the barbarous Nations were armed as much by weather and by climate, as by Darts and Weapons: And yet at your approach, as if the season of the year were by your influence thawed into a change, they confined themselves within their holds and caves, while our Soldiery marched along the banks, and had you allowed 'em to have pursued that advantage, which the enemy oft took, they had made the same depth of winter, which used to be the other's greatest security, the time of their total rout and subversion.  
13. This was the respect you bore among your enemies, what among your own Soldiers? How did you oblige 'em at the same time to duty and admiration? While they felt no hunger, but what you bore a part in: No thirst, but what you yourself set for an example of patience: In the exercising of your Troops you mingled your own sweat and dust with theirs, desiring in all things to be barely their equal, except in the odds of strength and valour: Charging briskly, and as freely receiving the charge, now whirling Darts at others, then standing the brunt of those thrown at you, spurring on the courage and dexterity of your men, seeming never better pleased, than with those who could strike the deepest blow on your shield or helmet: For you commended the boldest darer, and provoked him on to a greater boldness, a becoming boldness, which they could not want, while they saw you stand over them a Spectator and a Judge of their activity: You handling their Arms, poizing their Darts, and if any complained of their heaviness, you wheedled him into content by making nothing of throwing 'em yourself. You recruit the weary, relieve the sick. You never enter your own Pavilion, till you have first visited each Soldier's Tent, nor take your own repose, till you see others all asleep. A General thus completely qualified would not so much have raised my wonder, if he had happened among the Fabricii, the Scipio's, the Camilli, for then perhaps the heat of imitation might have chafed him on, and he might have been touched with a noble scorn of coming a whit behind the best. But that now in these sneaking and cowardly times, when the profession of Arms is sunk from solid action to a superficial sight, degenerated from rough labour to an idle pleasure, when our Companies are exercised not by experienced home Commanders who have won the mural and the civic Crown; but by some upstart modish Grecians: when our discipline is thus corrupt, how strange is it to see one of the good old Roman stamp, who fights and conquers without a rival, without an example, to convince the lazy World, that as he Reigns alone, so he alone deserves to Reign?  
14. And have you not, Caesar, from your very Infancy been nursed, been trained to these glories? Nay did you not in your very Cradle, as it were, commence a Hero? While yet a Stripling, your Parthian expedition added to the Catalogue of your Father's Victories, and you even then deserved the title of Germanicus. For hearing of the Parthian inroads on our neighbouring Allies, you did courageously dispatch, and bravely scour them back, making both the Rhine and Euphrates jointly admire your prowess: Marching along through the most distant Countries, yet not so fast in person, as in fame, gradually increasing your reputation, and appearing still greatest where you appear last: And all this before you were Emperor, before you were Successor to a God. And though Germany be environed with many Warlike Nations, hemmed in with several inaccessible deserts, and blocked up, as it were, with the Alps, the Pyrenoean Mountains, and other craggy Hills, which might be called great, if not compared with the former, which so much exceed 'em: Yet when through these discouraging tracts you led, or rather (such was the expedition) you hurried your nimble Army, you never so much as took Chariot, or mounted your Horse, having only a light hunting Nag brought after you, which was more for show than service, never making any use of him but only, when your Army were at the end of their march, to gallop for diversion o'er the neighbouring Fields. Shall I wonder most at the onset of your enterprises, or at the event of them? 'Tis much that you held out to the end, 'tis yet more that you never doubted you should fail or come short, of your first resolves. I question not but that 
* Domitionl  Prince, who, sending for you as far as from Spain, commissioned you to the charge of the Germane War, being too lazy for the enterprise himself, and yet envious of those parts, he was forced to employ; I say, I question not but he admired your conduct, and yet was jealous of your eminence. As the Divine Hercules was out of malice employed by his 
* Erystheus.  Prince in several hazardous undertake, yet still returned a Victor, and by doing so derived a stronger odium upon the greatness of his success. And thus came you always off so triumphantly, that your happy discharge of one expedition did but make way for your fresh engagement in another.  
15. While you were a military Tribune, you marched on through several Countries, with the age of a youth, yet the courage of a man: Forestall fortune then kindly instructing you, in what you were afterward to instruct others. You not being content to glance over your slighted charge, and huddle up a tiresome War, but so acted the subordinate Officer, as if you deserved immediately to be Supreme Commander, having nothing left to learn yourself, when you should be advanced to the Province of teaching others. You were versed and completely skilled by ten several expeditions in the customs of the World, in the Situation of Countries, in the advantages and conveniency of different grounds, in the property and temper of foreign Waters and Airs, which you had made as samiliar to your body, as those of your own native Country. How often (not out of fear or misfortune, but as spoils won from the enemy) have you changed your half spent Horse and battered Arms? So that time shall come when posterity shall take out their Children, and in curiosity conduct 'em to the several places, where such a field drank up your showering sweat, where the fruit of such a tree was your homely repast, where such a stone was your hardy pillow, where such a Cottage was your humble Inn. As it is not unlikely that in some of those very places you yourself have been bid remember what noble Achievements had been there wrought by some of your famed and immortal Forefathers. This your bravery was long since shown; for they who were your fellow Soldiers are now old and almost worn out: Though indeed you were fellow Soldier to every one before you were his General: Thence comes it that you can salute 'em all by their respective names, and can rehearse to each their most memorable acts of gallantry; nor can any show a scar received for his Country, but that at the time of receiving it you were both a witness, and a commander of his valour.  
16. But the discreet manage and command over the bent of your Education is to be admired beyond all other your additional accomplishments: That bred up in Arms, and nursed in a War, you should love and court the blessings of peace. Nor, because your Father inur'd to triumphs, and a victorious Laurel was consecrated to Jove on the very day of your Adoption, do you therefore seek all occasions to improve your patrimony of triumphal honours: No, you fear not the consequence of War, and yet you catch not at pretences for quarrel. It was a noble (believe me, dread Sovereign) it was a noble Act to stand deliberating on the banks of Danube, assured of Victory should you pass, and yet out of goodness not tempting, not urging them to Battle, whose cowardice declined it: The one whereof was an effect of your courage, the other of your Clemency; it was your Clemency, that induced you to forbear the engagement, it was your courage, that made them afraid to engage. Our Capitol shall be henceforth adorned not with stolen Chariots, not with the Trophies of a counterfeit victory, but upon our Emperor's return with an honest and justly obtained glory, it shall shine with the purchases of peace and settlement, and be stuffed with spoils of the enemy, so great, so many, that it may be easily guest, there is none remains unconquered. This far surpasses all former triumphs. The occasion of our Wars being not drawn on by choler, rashness or ambition, but always from the more allowable and justifying cause of calling for satisfaction for such affronts, which shall be put upon our Empire. And if from henceforth any foreign Prince shall be so unadvised and daring as to draw down your anger and vengeance on him, though he be guarded by the interposal of Seas and Rivers, though he lie entrenched within the natural fortification of Hills and Mountains, yet shall not all these in the least obstruct your irresistible attempts, the Waters shall sink into passable fords, the Mountains shall cringe into humble plains, the Seas shall retire into dry sands, and the presumptuous Prince shall with terror think, that not only a landing Navy, but a transplanted Nation is poured in upon him.  
17. Methinks I now behold a triumph not made up with feathers stolen from our own Provinces, nor laden with Gold injuriously extorted from our Confederates and Allies, but nobly decked with hostile spoils and chains of captive Kings. Methinks I see our Soldiers rattling over the names of mighty Generals, and pointing at the bodies suitable to the greatness of their name. Methinks I see the Pageants expressing the method and manner of your respective conquests. Before go shoals of Barbarian Captives with their hands tied behind, to denote they are now bound to obey: after these follow you in your stately Chariot as treading on the necks of enslaved Nations, bearing before you the relics of those shields and helmets, which your own hand has pierced and battered: Nor are there wanting the spoils of disarmed Generals, whom you never failed of dismounting and making your Royal Prisoners, if haply any of them were so bold as against your unequal skill to dare an Encounter: Though indeed a single cast not only of your Darts, but of your very looks would make the proudest of 'em stand rebuked, and even in the face of a whole Campaign, at the head of their own Army, to shake, tremble and retire: And from henceforth, whenever a respect for the honour of our Empire shall engage you to an invasive, or a defensive War, your past moderation may assure us, that you conquer not because you may triumph, but triumph only because you conquer.  
18. The remembrance of one thing gives occasion for the recollecting of another: How worthy and serviceable a performance is it, that you have retrieved the impaired and lost discipline of Arms, scouring off the lazy Lethargy of the last age, purging out their sloth, their stubbornness, their not caring to obey? 'Tis safe to be feared, 'tis safer to be beloved, you are safe and happy in both. There is no General, who ought either to fawn for, or yet to slight, the affections of his Soldiers, but rather fond of their love, yet not afraid of their hate, he ought so to demean himself, that he may securely overlook the works, see to their being rightly Marshaled, take account of their Arms, give order for the entrenchments, and assign the several Posts or Stations to each respective Sentinel. For he indeed is by no means a Prince, but a slave to his own jealousies, who suspects those stratagems to be designed against himself, that are prepared against the Enemy, which has been a cowardly surmise of some, who have feared their own Forces would be turned against themselves. With shame we confess it, in former times Military profession was just sunk into nothing, men's bodies, as well as their minds, were heavy, dull and drooping, swords with rust were riveted into scabbards, where they slept and forgot their primitive employ: Our Generals stood upon their Guards more from suspicion of their own Subjects than for prevention of the attempts of foreign Princes, and feared the treachery of their own Soldiers, more than the violence of their professed Enemies.  
19 It is the nature of the heavenly bodies that the lesser and more obscure dwindle, wink, and die into the lustre of more dazzling Orbs: And thus Ambassadors must lose both their state and authority at the personal appearance of those Princes, they had the honour to represent. Whereas you indeed outshined all, yet without eclipsing the splendour of any weaker lights, each person kept his glory as entire while you were present, as when absent: Nay some of your delegates were made the more honourable by your company, while respected by you, they met with the more respect from others. By these endearments you gained on the affections of all, from the highest to the most inseriour quality, so acting by turns the part both of a General and a common Soldier, that you prescribed and imposed Military duties, as a Supreme Commander, and yet assisted in the performance of them, as an equal companion. How happy were all under your Conduct, all your past associates, of whose loyalty and industry not your Ears, but your Eyes informed you, the knowledge whereof you had not from the partial advice of others, but from the safer and stronger proofs of your own experience: And you were thus farther kind to them, that in your absence you listened to no envious reports, but believed what you had sound yourself, sooner than catcht at what you heard from others.  
20. Now did the longing wishes of Rome recall you, and the more fond affection, you bore your Country, overswayed that love, you had shown your Soldiers. So that now you return, yet with so strict a Discipline, with so little of forage, plunder or other abuse, as if you came from a regular peace, rather than from a tumultuous War: And, though it seem too trifling to add to your commendation, I cannot but observe, that no Father, no Husband feared the injurious effects of your return. Chastity has been a virtue in most others affected only, and pretended to, but in you it was so unfeigned, as not to be reckoned among those endowments, which are acquired by habit, but those implanted by nature. There was no grievance in the pressing of Carriages, no nicety in the taking up of lodgings, no trouble in the catering of dainties for your entertainment. Add to this, that your Progress at the head of your Troops was with so much of dispatch, and in so well governed order, as if you went with Commission to an Army, rather than returned in triumph with one. So little different were your temper and behaviour then while a Subject, and since when an Emperor. How unlike this was the late March of a former Prince (if it may be called a march, and not rather an hostile incursion) when he pillaged houses and dispossessed the inhabitants, sacked and burnt all before him, as if some Enemy had made an inroad for spoil and booty, or those very Barbarians, he fled from, had pressed on in pursuit of Victory? The aggrieved Provinces ought to have rested satisfied that it was the journey of a Domitian, not of a Prince. Therefore to promote the public good, rather than advance your private reputation, you published an Edict of the particular expenses both of his and your own Germane expedition. It is indeed a commendable custom for a Prince to keep a just reckoning betwixt himself and his Empire, so to undertake any enterprise, and so to return from the management of it, as if he were shortly to be called to an exact account: And if he thus punctually cast up what he spends, he will be sure not to spend more, than he may be willing to own. Beside, by your publishing this bill of charges, succeeding Princes may meet with Precedents of frugal and more lavish disbursements, and when two such different examples are proposed, they must give men leave to judge of their inclinations, accordingly as they adhere to the one, or the other.  
21. For these so many and so remarkable merits, what advance of honours what additional titles did you not abundantly deserve? Yet it was not without a struggling regret that you complied with the acceptance of that one appellation of Father of your Country. How long were we forced to strive and combat with your modesty? And with how much of difficulty did we at last overcome? That name, which most of your Predecessors received at their first Inauguration, as duly as they did that of Emperor and Caesar, you differed till such time, as yourself, the most impartial judge of your own merit, could not but own you deserved it. So that to you of all other did regularly happen truly to be the Father of your Country, before you were declared so to be. For under that character did we entertain you, both in our judgements, and in our affections: Nor would the public zeal have stood upon the ceremony of any one title, but that having experienced your indulgence much more, than your authority, it would have seemed undutiful, as well as improper, not to have styled you Father, much sooner than Lord, or Emperor: Which honourable appellation with what sweetness, what affection do you answer the just intent and occasion of? Living in an Empire with your Subjects, as in a Family with your Children; returning as a Prince, when you went out no better than a Subject, and yet having your thoughts no higher for your advance to a Crown, but thinking both yourself and us in the same equal relation amidst all your Royalty, as when in a private Station: Content in all respects to be, as one of us, and so much greater only, by how much better, than others.  
22. How long hoped, how wished for was that day when at your return you passed in public through the City? Nay the very manner of your solemn March how grateful, how obliging? Former Princes have usually been brought in, not only in pompous Chariots drawn with white Racers, but, what has more of State and pride, supported on the shoulders of men; while you, so much the more visible only, as the more tall and proper of your retinue, seemed to ride in a triumph, not over the patience of your people, but over the Grandeur of Princes. No age, no infirmity, no different Sex was debarred from the common benefit of glutting their eyes on that welcome and unusual sight. Children were taught to know you, young men pointed, old men admired, and even those, whose sickness had confined 'em to their beds, or chambers, contrary to the advice of their cautious Physicians, came forth, and seemed confident, that the bare influence of so blest an object would complete their recovery. Some were content now to die, since they had lived to see, what they had so long prayed for: Others were the more eager to have their lives prolonged as knowing it would be some comfort to live under the Protection of so excellent a Government. Women thought it now some joy to be made Mothers, since they saw to what Prince they brought forth Subjects, and what a long prospect of happiness was thereby entailed on their Children. The tops of houses were all covered with spectators, who climbed and hung over at that venturous rate, as if they were just falling, yet for crowds of company below were not likely to come to the ground. The streets were thronged on either side, and scarce a narrow lane left for your passage. The multitude from all quarters discharged loud peals of joy, and thundered from every part in shouts and acclamations: While this rejoicing at your return, being as universal, as the benefits of it, grew still greater, as you marched farther, and advanced along with every step you made.  
23. It was a pleasure to see you return those embraces to the Senate, which they had lent you at parting: A pleasure to find you could salute most of the principal Gentry by their names without a Remembrancer. A pleasure that you would not only condescend to take notice of your meaner Subjects, but would be very free and familiar in your discourse with them: And above all, the greatest pleasure that you marched leisurely, and allowed time for the people to have a full view of you, nay would suffer any of the Mobile to come up, and make the nearest approach to your Person, not being afraid even the first day to trust yourself with a promiscuous rabble, and therefore not environed with too numerous a Guard, but free and open to receive the Addresses sometime of your Senate, at other times of your Courtiers, according as by turns they paid their dutiful respects. Those of your Guard, that cleared the way before you, passed quietly and offered no injuries, nor affronts: And your Soldiers were distinguished, scarce by habit, much less by roughness, or incivility, from the rest of the people. When you began to mount the Capitol, how comfortable an occasion did that give of recollecting the time and place of your Adoption? And what a peculiar joy was it to those, who had from thence before saluted you Emperor? Nay I believe the very Deity of the place took great satisfaction in reviving that signal work of his own Providence. But when you stood on that particular Station from whence your Father had pronounced this secret of the Gods, how the Temple echoed with repeated shouts? How were the former acclamations renewed? And how like was this day to that other, which occasioned it? How loaded were the Altars with Victims and Sacrifices? How zealous and devout were the people in praises for your Succession, and prayers for your preservation? Knowing that to send up their petitions for your safety was in effect to beg a blessing on themselves, their Children, and all their other Secular concerns. From hence you retired to your Palace, but with so humble a look, so meek a carriage, as if you had been returning only to your private house; The rest went all to their respective homes, there to rejoice without hypocrisy, because without witness of their joy.  
24. Such a magnificent entrance might have been apt to have allured others to pride and ambition: But you unshocked by all temptations grew still more to be admired, more to be beloved. In a word, such you are, as others do but promise to be. You are the first precedent of a Prince who proceeds better, than he first began: Your excellent temper joining those properties, which heretofore seemed incompatible, the modesty of a beginner, and the constancy of a long slander in Government. You suffer not your subjects to throw themselves at your feet, and think it too much state to require they should kneel, and kiss your hand. The addition of an Empire has not made you one whit the more big or stately than before: You used to walk much, you continue the same custom: You were wont to take delight in toil and labour, you do the same still: In a word, Fortune has changed all about you, yet has made no alteration on your steady self. When you take the Air abroad, it is free for every one to stop at the sight of you, to come up, and meet you, to walk on even with you, or to pass by and go beyond you: You come among us as familiarly, as if you were but one of us, and accept of our company, not out of necessity, but choice. Every one, who has access to you, stays his own time, and breaks off his discourse, when his own modesty, not your weariness, does advise. We are indeed Governed by you, and subject to you, yet no otherwise, than as to our Fundamental Laws, which both direct and punish without partiality, or passion. You are eminent and Supreme as Power and Authority in the Abstract, which are indeed above all, yet are administered by some, and exercised on another's. In past ages Princes from a haughty disdain of doing like the rest of the World, and a fear of being thought equal to their subjects, if they dissented not in their customs from them, had lost all use of their feet, so that they were forced to be carried on the necks and shoulders of others, yet when thus mounted, they were much your inferiors in respect of that higher degree, whereto your own deserts, and the duty of your subjects have raised and exalted you. You reach Heaven the more justly by submitting to tread earth, and go the farther beyond us, by vouchsafing to walk with us.  
25. Nor do I fear (my Lords) to be thought too tedious on this Subject: Since it is chiefly to be wished that the particulars, for which a just return of thanks is due to Princes, should be many; and many indeed they are, which it would be more manners to stifle and pass by unobserved, than to be short and abrupt in the delivery of them: Because it naturally happens, that what is designedly concealed is by such cunning suppression better set off, than if it were slightly and trivially expressed. Though indeed I can but concisely touch at his generous enriching of several Families, his frank bestowing of a Largess on the people, and that the whole of what he had promised, when the Soldiers received no more than a part of their Donative. This was an Argument of no ordinary spirit, to give most to those whom he might best have denied: Yet this odds was in other respects made up, and neither side was left to brag, or complain of an inequality: The Soldiers had a part only, but then they were first served: The people were forced to wait, but then their patience was rewarded with a receipt of the whole. How impartial and equal was the Dividend made? How careful were you that none should be defrauded of their share? It was allowed even to those, who had not first been nominated, but were deputed in the room of others: So that those tasted of your bounty, whom you, lay under no promise to relieve. If one happened to be detained by business, another by sickness, this by a voyage, that by travel, their just shares were preserved for them; and care taken that no one's distemper, employment, or absence should be his loss, but each appear at his own time, whenever his will, whenever his occasions would best dispense with him. It was generous and like yourself (Heroic Caesar) to reach the most distant Countries by the extent of your liberality, to let no not the widest space set bounds to your munificence, to prevent the mischiefs of chance, to shackle up the powers of fortune, and so to contrive it, that at your dispersing a Largess the worst infirmities of humanity should never balk your bounty, but every one be less sensible of his being a Man, than of being a free Denizen of Rome.  
26. On the day of distributing such Largesses, it was formerly the custom that shoals of young Children (the nursery and breed of a future people) used to flock in the streets, and wait the coming of the Prince; the Parents took great pains to show him to their little ones, and to teach them some cursory form of petition, who accordingly prattled, as they were taught, and addressed their pretty gabble to the deaf Ears of the Prince, while not knowing either what they asked, or when they were denied, the grant was generally deferred, till they came to years of more growth and understanding. Whereas you were so frankly generous, as to impart your charity without staying for the Ceremony of being entreated, and, though you took pleasure in looking upon Troops of Petitioners, yet you prevented their trouble of Address, and met them in your bounty, before they could approach you in Person. Nay you commanded the very Infants to be Enrolled among the objects of your Royal care, that being Educated at your charge, they might from their Cradle acknowledge you their Foster Parent. You thought it but just and reasonable that those, who were bred for your service, should be bred at your expense: That they should be supported by a pension, till they were able to earn a pay: And so be all not more indebted to their natural Parents for being born Infants, than to you for their being made Men. It is a discreet generosity (Caesar) to discharge the expense of bringing up these budding hopes of Rome: There can be no disbursements to better advantage, none that will more effectually purchase you an immortal name, than what are thus laid out for the good of Posterity. The rich have encouragements to get Children from the several 
* Rehearsed in the Law de maritandis ordinibus, which was preferred by Q. Metellus, and revived by Augustus.  privileges they thereby gain, and to avoid such inconveniences which they must otherwise undergo: The poor have but one inducement, and that is the blessing of breeding up subjects to so good a Prince. These Children thus born to the alone use of his service, except he cherish, feed, and maintain them, he knows he should but hasten the decay of his Empire, and push on the ruin of the Commonwealth. For a Prince who guards his Nobility with favour and protection, while he leaves his Commonalty naked and defenceless, does but provide for a tottering head with no limbs, no body to poise or support it. It is easy to guests what complacency you must needs take in the being so loudly welcomed with the congratulating noise of all relations, of each Sex, and every age: To make up the joyful Chorus, Children prattled their very first attempts to speak, those Children for whom you made so early provision, as freely to give, before their loosened Tongue had the power to ask. And indeed among all the other blessings of your Government, this must be accounted the most eminent, that it is a pleasure, nay a profit to be the Father of many Children.  
27. The fondest Parents fear now no other dangers to ruin their hopes, than the bare casualties of humane frailty, nor among incurable mischiefs is the anger of the Prince any longer to be reckoned. A main encouragement to educate Children arises from the hopes of a liberal maintenance, and the prospect of honourable employs, but 'tis much more encouraging to breed them to the enjoyment of a fixed liberty, and a secure unaltered property. Let a Prince take no care to enrich his subjects, so he attempts not to impoverish them, let him not maintain, so he does not destroy, and yet most persons, even under such an indifferent Government, would be desirous of Issue: But on the other hand, if he plunders more, than he bestows, if he ruin more Families, than he raises, it will unavoidably in a short while happen, that all will see reason to repent the birth of themselves and their Ancestors, as well as bewail that of their Children and posterity. But in the disposals of your bounty, as being entirely free from such extortion, I can commend nothing more justly, than that whatever you grant, was your own to bestow; not feeding your Subjects, as wild Beasts do their young, by the violent acquists of Murder and rapine: Your favours becoming always the more acceptable, because those, who are obliged by them, know that no others were defrauded of them: And that for all the enrichments they receive no one is made poorer, but the Royal Donour only and not properly he neither; for being truly Lord of all Estates, he is owner of so much, as his Subjects possess.  
28. More copious matter of commendation seems now (Caesar) to call me some other way: But why so soon diverted? As if I had enough insisted on, as if I had sufficiently respected and admired your large and almost profuse beneficence not bestowed by way of policy to bribe off those calumnies and slanders, your Conscience tells you, you had given just occasion for, nor to drown the discontents, and murmurs of your people, by the offer of a more comfortable Subject of discourse. You bought off the envy of no miscarriage by a wheedling Largess, nor atoned for any illegal action by the settlement of a pension; neither was that at any time the ground of your doing good, to compound for the passing uncensured, in what you had done ill. The intent of your bounty was the purchase, not of excuse, but of love; and the people always returned from your Courts of Judicature, not so much pacified for former abuses, as obliged by an assurance of never being injured. You offered your Largess with as much joy to give, as those to receive, as secure in your grants, as they in their acceptance: And that which some of your Predecessors disbursed to calm the discontent of swelling spirits, and take off that odium they found themselves to lie under, this you distributed with as much of innocence and simplicity as others could possibly receive it. No less (my Lords) than five thousand freemen has the good nature of our Prince sought for, found out, and relieved: These are the supplies of War, these the guards of peace, maintained at the public charge, and thereby taught to respect their Country, not only as their place of birth, but as their nurse and bringer up. Out of these are our Armies to be recruited, our Tribes filled up, and from the loins of these shall in time proceed such, whose liberal fortune shall secure them from all need of relief. Let the Gods give you (Great Sir) that length of days, your merits seem to challenge, and keep unchanged that generous Soul, they have endowed you with: And when you see the Roll of Infants, who are to be the objects of your alms, enlarged, (for their numbers do daily increase, not because Children are better beloved of their Parents, but subjects of their Prince) you may relieve them if you please, you may maintain them if you see fit, if not, it is enough that they are born to obey, and must discharge their allegiance without bribe or reward.  
29. It may well be reckoned one continued Largess of our Prince, that he has contrived to furnish our City with a never failing supply of Corn: Which piece of provident husbandry added heretofore no less glory to Pompey, than his regulating Elections by a law against purchase of Votes, his scouring the Seas of Pirates, and making the East and West a successive subject of his triumphs. This one project of stocking Rome with a constant import of provisions, equalled, nay exceeded the best of his other Achievements. With the same care, the same charity, has our Prince made the highways securely passable, cleared the Ports, frighted away the fears of plunder and robbery, as well in journeys by Land, as voyages at Sea: And made so open an intercourse of trade and commerce between the most distant Nations, as if those commodities, which are the growth but of one Country, were the native product of all. With joy we find that the wants of each year are abundantly supplied with the yield and increase of it, and this brought to our own homes without force or compulsion. We do not plunder nor rifle our Allies, we do not cheat their Barns of the promised Harvest, but let them quietly carry in what their fields afford, what the several seasons do allow: Nor do we charge them so thick with fresh taxes, as to disable them from paying off their old Arrears. The public treasury does not steal, what it professes to purchase, but honestly buys in stores of provisions, which are again so vended without fraud or exaction, that we have plenty at home, and yet make no dearth or scarcity abroad.  
30. Egypt has always bragged of being a fertile nursery of Corn, and that without being indebted to the Charity of the Heavens, without needing the relief of refreshing showers: For she is sufficiently moistened by the Waters of her own River, whose customary overflowings have so fattened and enriched her soil, that she seems a Storehouse to other Nations, and might with modesty be entitled the Granary of the World. This very Country by a surprising drought was parched and withered into one continued Wilderness: For Nilus shrunk back, and would not overpass its banks, but like other Rivers ran on in a bounded and confined channel. So that vast tracts of land by being thus deprived of their accustomed moisture dried and crumbled into the most barren dust and sand. In vain did Egypt now expect comfort from the denying clouds, in vain did she gape for any blessing from the skies, since the wont Author of her full Barns sunk down and contracted her plenty into as narrow a compass, as his own streams. Nor did the unconstant River keep up to those banks which were wont to be his shortest bounds, but crept yet lower, and seemed to attempt the sneaking away undiscovered, leaving the shallows of his own bottom as dry and scorched, as any other parts of the Sunburnt deserts. The hungry people thus losing the benefits of a wish'd-sor inundation, and thereby the hopes of all food and sustenance, direct those prayers to Caesar, which in vain they had spent on their unregarding River: While placing their devotions now aright, their petitions were answered, as soon as heard. Thus swift (O Emperor) is the reach of your power, thus dispatchful upon all occasions your Acts of Mercy, that the most miserable need use no other methods of relief, than barely to let you know their wants.  
31. I wish indeed plenteous Crops and fruitful years to the several inhabitants of each part of the World: Yet I cannot but believe that Egypt's being plagued with this miserable dearth was a mere trick of fortune to try your power, and make proof of your extensive care and vigilance. For since your merits claim success in all attempts, it is apparent that whatever deplorable chances happen, they are only to afford fresh matter and new subjects for the employ of your undaunted virtues: Prosperity indeed may make men happy, but misfortunes alone can approve them great. It has been a long received opinion that Rome could not feed her inhabitants without supplies from Egypt: This made that haughty Province boast, that the Conquerors of the World were beholden to her for their bread, and at her disposal must they either feast or starve. We have now quitted the obligation, and repaid the utmost of what she could charge upon us: She has received back that Corn she was wont to export, and recalled those stores she has formerly dispensed. Let Egypt therefore learn, let her by this experiment believe, that she gives us not a necessary sustenance, but pays us a justly imposed tribute: Let her know we can live without her assistence better than she without our protection. Let Nilus now, as oft as the sullen humour takes him, stick to his own channel, and be shackled to an imprisonment within his own banks, Rome scorns to be concerned, and Egypt's self will feel no worse effect, than that her Vessels must launch out empty as they were wont to return, and take in their Cargo here at Rome where they were used to unlade: While the method of their trading being thus altered, they may change their devotion, and turn their prayers for a safe Voyage out to a fair wind home. It had been next to a miracle (Caesar) if these wants of Egypt had not enhanced the price of Corn, and made a much greater scarcity at Rome, but that your providence had so well stocked it, as to have enough to spare, and give the World a proof that Rome without Egypt might well subsist, but Egypt never without Rome. Here had been an end of a most flourishing Nation, had it been a free and independent State; they were ashamed of their unaccustomed dearth, and their never yet experienced hunger made them blush no less than pine: While your opportune charity, with one and the same kindness both spared their modesty, and relieved their wants. Their husbandmen were surprised to see Corn, which was not of their own growth, and wondered from whence the Harvest came, or in what other part of Egypt there had been an overflowing Nile: Thus did your bounty correct the barrenness of their soil, and their deserting River at this lowest ebb never rose higher to the glory of Rome.  
32. What a blessing is it for all Nations to be brought under the subjection of our Empire, since they are thereby engaged to pay Allegiance to a Prince, who can dispense out plenty here and there according as different times and occasions require? Who can seed and nurture a Foreign Province with as much of tenderness, as if it were a Colony only of Roman Citizens. Nay the extent of his influence does in some measure outreach even that of the Heavens themselves: For those glorious Orbs are never so lavish of their blessings, as in the same year to disperse the same portion of them through all Countries and Climates; whereas he, with the same open hand toward all, if he does not prevent a dearth, does at least redress the mischiefs of it: If he command not a plenty, he does at least correct the niggardness of nature, and makes full amends for whatever she peevishly detains. He brings the widely distant East and West to meet, and to a wonderful embrace in an interchangeable commerce: So that whatever is the growth of one place, or the desire of another may every where be had, and equally enjoyed. From this happiness let all Nations be convinced, how much more for their advantage it is to be united under the Government of one, than by a specious liberty to be crumbled into thousands of weak and helpless parties: For if separate and independent from each other, their mischiefs would be peculiar, and their blessings incommunicate: But when confederate and intermixed, their evils are abated by falling not singly on themselves, and their benefits enlarged by being imparted to others. But with respect to Egypt, whether something of Divinity wait on their soil, or some Genius attend their River, I hope both their Earth and their Waters will treasure up that Corn, our Prince bestows, in such sort, as in time to restore it multiplied: Not that we shall demand any interest for the Loan, but that we would have them confess an obligation to pay it. Let them make amends for the loss of one years' crop by a long unintermitted yield of plenty, which let them measure out to us the more freely, as we are the more sparing to exact.  
33. Having thus provided for the advantages both of your subjects and Allies, having thus secured our profit, you come now to consult our pleasure: And present us with magnificent Shows, not trifling, or of a short continuance, not corrupting the Spectators to vice or debauchery, but improving their courage, and leading them on to a generous scorn of wounds, and more noble contempt of death; while they see an eager pursuit of glory and an ambitious quest of victory even in the basest slaves, and most wretched of Malefactors. And in setting forth these Plays, how unparallelled your bounty, how exact your justice, above all prejudice for one faction, or partially for another? Whenever we asked, you frankly gave, nay, offered more than we had the confidence to desire. You seemed to chide our bashfulness, and invited us on to a freedom of petitioning, while from hence we were obliged with many fresh and unexpected favours. Then how free was it to come to these diversions? How safe to declare our approbation or dislike? No person argued of impiety, as was sadly wont, for houting or condemning any particular gladiatour. No Spectator was himself made a spectacle to pay for his dear-bought pleasure at the heavy price of Fire and Gibbet. He 
* Domitian.  was little better than raving mad, and had no right estimate of true honour, who drew treason from the most sportive actions, nay the very looks of Spectators, who thought we affronted him, if we adored not his Fencers, who believed the slighting of their skill was a contempt of his own Majesty, having no less a conceit, than that he himself was a God, and they his Princely Representatives, and so took as to himself what indignities were offered to them.  
34. Instead of this bloody, this accursed show, how fair, how innocent a one have you obliged us with? We have now seen false Evidences, and suborned Informers punished with the same severity, as Thiefs and Murderers: This sort of plague did lately so far spread, that they skulked not in corners or unfrequented places, but thronged the Temples, and crowded the Courts of Justice; At the mercy of these Rascals lay every man's life and estate, no degree, no condition secure, the being a Father or being childless was a like criminal, when these Villains were agreed to make it so. To this fatal mischief in former times the spleen and avarice of our Princes has much contributed. But you nobly resolved to correct this abuse, and when you had reformed the discipline of the Camp, you came to regulate the proceedings of your Courts of Justice too▪ You stopped the farther growth of this accursed gangrene, and by a well timed severity took care that your Imperial City, founded and supported by Laws, should not be ruined by the illegal execution of them. And therefore though your fortune, and your bounty have conspired to oblige us with the sports, sometime of strong and bulky men, now of savage beasts, then of wild ones to a wonder tamed, and finally with an exposing to open view those 
* Treasured up by Domitian and now produced by Trajan.  Rarities till now hoarded and locked up from public sight: Yet have you done nothing more honourable, nothing more becoming the glories of your Reign, than your just retribution of suborned witnesses: We fed our eyes with seeing them drawn through the Streets to the place of execution, we looked and blest ourselves at the comfortable sight, when (like victims to atone for the blood their perjuries had shed) they were dragged away to make the fame ignominious end, they had brought so many innocent souls to. Some of them in order to be transported were thrust on shipboard, and delivered over to the mercy of storms and billows: deservedly were they expelled that Country their misinformations had laid desolate. If any of them happed to escape the Justice of Winds and Sea, they should be landed on barren Rocks, and unfrequented Shores, there to drudge out a laborious, and a miserable lise, far from all Societies, which they were not fit to be members of.  
35. A memorable sight this! A fleet of Evidences turned loose to grapple with the Winds who spread their sails together in the storms, and sly before the driving waves, till their Career be stopped by dashing against some surly Rock. A gallant prospect from the safer Shore to view the rambling Navy tossed and scattered through the foaming Ocean! And a fit occasion this of fresh gratitude to our Prince, who preserving his Clemency untainted, has delivered over these criminals to the justice of the Sea and the Gods thereof. A notable instance this of what alterations short times may produce, when to those very deserts, where the innocent were lately so injuriously banished, the guilty are now most justly confined: And all those savage Islands so lately filled with salsly accused Senators, are now more properly stocked with these perfidious Informers; whom you have not only curbed or stifled for the present, but by penalties answerable to their black crimes totally quelled and suppressed them for ever. If any now attempt to cheat others of their livelihood, they must lose their own, if they would dispossess others of their homes, they must turn out themselves. Nor can they elude the intent of the Law, or shuffle off the sentence of the Judge; they cannot shift with a cold iron, which shall make no mark, nor impression, nor can they laugh at those torments, that never hurt them. Their Fines must be now proportioned to their faults, their hopes of escape must be now less, than their fear of smart, and they must dread others as much, as they themselves were lately dreaded. With a noble courage did the Divine Titus begin to secure us from these mischiefs by the guard of severe and seasonable Edicts, and in gratitude for this attempt was he deservedly deified. How much more justly hereafter (yet long may the coming of that hereafter be) shall you be worthy of the same divine honours, who have built upon and completely finished those Laws, which at the rough foundation were thought meritorious of entitling him a God? The difficulty of this accomplishment was much the greater upon this account, that the Emperor Nerva, who deserved you for his Son, deserved you his Successor, made so many additions to this Edict of Titus, that he seemed to leave no room for your completing hand; and yet you have so far enlarged it, as if nothing had been done before. Any of these Reformations singly dispensed would have been highly gracious, and well accepted of, but you poured them forth all at once, like the Sun and beams of day, which sprinkle not their light by fits and parcels, but dart it forth in discontinued streams, not confined to particular corners, but expanded through the whole surface of the World.  
36. What a blessing is it to see the Treasury free and unoppressive, in as profound a quiet, as before all disturbances created by Informers? It is now a Temple indeed, and the 
* Saturn.  Deity, it was dedicated to, does there certainly reside: It is no longer a drainer of the People, a repository of exactions or dishonest gains, and there is now one place at least, where the innocent are no longer made a prey to the unjust. Yet are all lawful deuce levied to the full, and no abatements made of what would be injurious to the Republic to lose: Nor are the penalties remitted to any, whom a fair trial shall convict: Yet is there a free Process for recovery of damages upon malicious or suborned accusers: And, in short, the case is so well altered, that men fear the Laws, not the Informers. But perhaps you have not taken so much care in regulating of your private Exchequer, as of the Treasury? Yes, the greater, by how much more boldly you can dispose of your own, than of what belongs to the public. Your Advocate, your Attorney may be now cited, and proceeded against, as the Law directs: For justice may be now had against them, as well as against ordinary Offenders, their penalties the same or greater, if you measure their punishment by the greatness of their figure and quality. Not the Princes will and pleasure, but Lots and an Urn, the common method of Elections, assign a Judge to the Exchequer: And if any be otherwise promoted, it is free to reject him, and to say of one, he is unqualified because he is timorous, and does not sufficiently understand the interest of his Country, and of another he is more fit for the employ, because he is true to his Country, and loyal to his Prince. Caesar and his subjects try out their Titles at the same Bar: And what, Sir, is to your eternal credit, your Exchequer is often cast, which yet can never come to the worst but under a good Prince. This is great obligation, and what a greater yet, that your Advocates are all persons of such integrity that the people desire no other Counsel, no other Judges, though it be free, for any not to entertain them, or to appeal from them: For though you assign them, you leave it to our choice to comply or refuse, knowing it is the highest grace of Royal favours to have the liberty of not accepting them.  
37. The charges and expense of Government impose a necessity of taxes, which though they appear a burden and grievance to particular persons, yet is that seeming inconvenience vastly out-balanced by their promoting the welfare of the community. For this use and purpose was the twentieth part of all Legacies formerly assigned: And this being light and easy to those heirs only, who bore no relation to the deceased, but hard and grievous to the next of blood, it was levied only upon the one, and remitted to the other. Forasmuch as it was apparent that men would not without reluctance, or rather not at all, endure to have any part embezzled or pared off from that Estate, which their birth had given them a title to, which was never the possession of a distinct family, or which they could but barely hope would be bequeathed to them, but which was their proper and immediate inheritance, and aught to pass downward by right of descent and proximity of blood. Yet was this exemption allowed only to the ancient Denizens, all the late-comers, whether enfranchised by the privilege that the Latins might claim, or by the boon and favour of the Prince, (except by express dispensation they had obtained the right of kindred) were in respect of the nearest relation accounted as no better than Aliens. Thus what was designed for the greatest ease and benefit, was soon perverted into the greatest grievance. The City of Rome was filled with jars, discords, and breaches in families, while the next heirs without any undutiful or disobliging carriage were in a manner dishinherited and debarred their right. Yet were some so fond of the honour of being incorporated with us, that they thought not only the forfeiture of the twentieth part of their estates, but the loss of kindred was abundantly recompensed by the title of Roman Citizens: Though upon those who prized it at so high a value it ought the more freely to have been conferred. Your Father Nerva therefore did hereupon decree, that what goods past from the Mother to the Children, or from the Children to the Mother (though at their being Indenizened they had not received the right of cognation) should not be liable to this tribute of the twentieth part. The same immunity he allowed to a Son as heir to his Father, (provided he were not emancipated from his Fahter's power and disposal) thinking it unjust, oppressive, and almost impious to exact any thing in cases of so near alliance, and judging it no less than some sort of Sacrilege to cut asunder the holy ties of relation by so sharp and rigid an imposal: Nor could he digest it as at all reasonable, that any Tax should so be raised, as to make Fathers and Children strangers to each other.  
38. Thus far went your Royal Predecessor, wherein though he fell short perhaps of the best of Princes, he came up at least to the best of Fathers: For being to adopt one of as large a Soul as himself, he betrayed this generous piece of indulgence, that he would but slightly begin and barely set the example, leaving to his Son an entire, and almost unattempted Field of glory. Immediately therefore to his Charity did your munificence farther add, that as the Son in the inheritance of his Father, so the Father in that of the Son should be exempt from all encumbrances, and by his unhappy ceasing to be a parent, not lose the advantage of his once having been so. It is an Heroical mercy of you (Caesar) not to exact Tribute of tears, nor to make a Father's loss your gain. Parents shall now succeed to what their Children died possessed of, without fraud or diminution; nor indeed would it be any way just, that they should have partners in their inheritance, who have none in their sorrows. No persons left Childless are called to account amidst their fresh and undigested grief, nor is the Father compelled to bring in an Inventary of what was left him by his Son. Our Prince's unparallelled bounty herein will appear the more admirable, if I knew the grounds and reasons of it: For it may indeed be deservedly reputed an ambition, vain glory, profuseness, or any worse name, rather than liberality, if not grounded on some firm and solid reason. Your motives therefore for thus doing were what are highly, Sir, worthy of your Clemency, to abate the afflictions of disconsolate parents, and, after the shrewd temptation of one loss, not superadd the trial of another. It is indeed misery enough for a mournfully surviving Father to be sole heir to a dear departed Son, without the dividing with a co-heir contrary to the will and knowledge of the deceased. Farther, when divine Nerva had decreed that Children coming to an enjoyment of their Father's Estates should be exempt from a payment of the twentieth part, it was but reasonable this privilege should extend to those inheritances, which passed from Sons to Fathers, as well as from Father to Son: For why should Children have the advantage of their Parents, and why should not the same equity ascend? This exception (Caesar) is by you removed, and the Father made capable to succeed the Son, supposing the Son to have been in his Father's power, which supposal too you took always for granted, having respect to that prime and fundamental Law of Nature, which does at no time acquit Children from a subjection to their Parents, nor allows to Rational beings, what is wildly practised among brutes alone, that strength should give the only Title to Dominion and Command.  
39 Neither would our Prince rest satisfied to exempt the first degree of blood from an imposition of the twentieth part; but his goodness scorning these limits flies beyond, and endows the second likewise with the same privilege. So that the Brother in the Sister's Estate, the Sister again in the Brothers, the Grandfather and Grandmother in that of the Grandchilds, and these again in that of theirs, should come to a free enjoyment without tax or composition. And to those, who by the right of Latium were made free of Rome, he granted the same immunities, allowing in all consanguinity a free passage to the direct course of nature: Which are favours indeed that former Princes were content to be petitioned for, yet not with so much intention of showing their Prerogative to grant, as their power to deny. Hence may we aptly learn what a generous Soul it argued to gather up and reunite our scattered, and as it were divorced Families, to regraft and so husband them as that fresh branches may shoot forth from the first paternal stocks: to comply with that which has been so often refused, to give to all in common what particular favourites could never obtain; and finally, to bar himself of so many occasions of exerting his Prerogative in conferring these favours as extraordinary on them, whose loyalty had deserved 'em, and in detaining them from such, who had been factious or ungrateful. He deemed it, I believe, unreasonable that petition should be made to an earthly Prince for what the Gods themselves by a branch of their eternal law had long since past into a natural charter. If by birth you are Brothers and Sisters, Grandfather and Grandchilds, or such like relations, this title exempts you from the forementioned tax, without any other Ceremony of peculiar licence. The Emperor, affording this farther instance of his humanity parallel to all the former, thinks it as invidious to make a mock gilded of what was your own by a Precedent property, as it would be unjust to take whatever you are legally possessed of. With courage therefore, and a bold assurance stand for honours, sue for offices, this breach and interruption of descents shall be no bar to your hopes or designs. All shall entirely enjoy the same proximity of blood, they did before, with more of freedom, more of privilege. Nay the most remote, and just ceasing degrees of affinity, in conveyances of small or but competent estates, shall be eased of this contribution of the twentieth part: For our indulgent Prince has imposed it only on those plentiful fortunes, that can well asford to bear it out.  
40. A low and slender inheritance shall be eased from this burden: In such cases the grateful heir may bestow it on a Monument in memory of the testator, or may disburse it all in the charges of his Funeral, none to correct or restrain him, none to call him to account: For on whatever consideration the Legacy was bequeathed him, he may arbitrarily dispose of it, as his own will or discretion shall direct. The Law for payment of the twentieth part is now so ordered, that a man must be very rich before he can come within the compass of it. What before was the subject of fear and grief, is now turned into joy, what was judged an oppression, is changed into ease and privilege: So as the heir not dreads, but wishes his Estate may come within the reach of this Law. By another clause of this Edict it is provided that those, who were in Arrears to the State for this tribute should be freely remitted, and without expense discharged. To remedy what is gone and passed seems even beyond the power of the Gods themselves. Yet this have you performed: While past debts are outdated, and those persons, who long since contracted them, are neither now to owe, nor to pay hereafter. You so perfectly redress all our former grievances that there remains no token of our ever having suffered under evil Princes. Nay if your power were of equal extent with your mercy, or were not feasible, which is indeed not possible, you would not only reinstate those, who had been injuriously outed of their possessions, but even restore to life as many, as without guilt or cause have been no better than formally murdered: But since you could not reinsuse their lost blood, you have at least redeemed their spent fortunes, by forgiving those fines and lapses, which were made due in the Reign of your Predecessors. Another Prince would have been so incensed at their being behindhand in Arrears, that he would have punished their backwardness with a fine of double, nay perhaps fourfold value to the principal debt: But you think it equally dishonest to exact what was unjustly made due, as to make due, what would be injustice to exact.  
41. Your frugal management (Caesar) makes you fit for the care and charge of a Consul, whose proper office it is to manage and moderate the expenses of the public: For when I consider that you have remitted our Assessments, bestowed a Donative, dispensed a Largess, expelled Informers, and abated our Taxes, methinks you might well be questioned, whether you have so cast up your Revenues, as to provide for the necessary occasions of Empire: Or is there such magic in good husbandry, that a little well ordered can be able to suffice a vast expense, a prodigious munificence? What account can be given why other Princes, when they had scraped and rifled all they could hook in, and held fast whatever by any means they procured, were yet after all in beggary and want. Whereas you, who expend much, and yet take in but little, have always plenty, always to spare. Few of your Predecessors ever wanted such instruments, who with sour looks and severe carriage were very punctual and rigorous in exacting the Imperial revenues. Nay some Princes themselves have from a stingy inclination been so very intent and watchful, that they seemed to need no Deputies, or Under-officers: While we were all along trepan'd to a falling out among ourselves, and so helped by informations to undo each other. Whereas your ears, as they are guarded against all other insinuations, so they are more especially deaf to all fawning complaints. All persons therefore of that scandalous employ are now suppressed and silenced, and there is none who will maliciously report, now there is none who will hastily believe. Thus are we beholden to you not only tor the goodness of your own Morals, but for the Reformation of ours.  
42. The Voconian and Julian Laws though of great advantage did not pour in more fines to the Exchequer, than that one strategeme of bringing all persons upon any srivolous offence within the reach of Treason. This fright and danger you have now released us from, in not being too jealous of your honour, which none have experienced more impaired, than those, who have been unseasonably suspicious of encroachments on it. Friends are now made faithful, Children dutisull, and Servants obedient. These last are reduced to a just awe and subjection, and taught to know that those they serve are masters of them. For they are not our Servants now who are made Confidents to our Prince, but we ourselves: Nor does the Father of his Country, now listen to slaves more readily, than to the Lords of them. You have freed us from our family and home enemies, and by thus providing for the public safety you have stifled and put an end to that Servile War which we were so long harast and afflicted with. Wherein you have not more obliged the Masters, than you have advantaged the Servants too: For you have made these more honest, as well as more secure. All these redresses, I know, your modesty will scarce allow, to be commended, and suppose them not likely to be so, yet they must needs be grateful to those who can well remember since a 
* Domitian.  Prince suborned Servants to swear against their Masters, and instructed them in what crimes they should accuse them of. This was a sad and deplorable mischief often experienced, where the Servants had no more of integrity, than the Prince had of honour or conscience.  
43. In the same Catalogue of your virtues is this farther to be ranked, that our last Wills are now secure, and the true intent of Testatours most religiously observed. You do not injuriously engross the whole upon an opportunity of being bequeathed a part. No fraud, no forgery entitles you to undesigned, Legacies. No ones displeasure at his nearer relations, no one's unnaturalness of passing by his own Children, no one's frenzy, or want of senses on his sick bed is the occasion of your being enriched: Nor is your favour or pardon by way of commutation hereby either bribed or purchased. You are named Heir not to buy off other offences, but to reward your own merits. All dying persons are left entirely to their own choice: Your friends may remember you, strangers may pass you by: No distinction in this respect between the times of your being a private Subject, and your being now an Emperor, save that now your love to more, makes you deservedly the more beloved. Keep on, Caesar, in this method, and you will soon experience, that it will highly advance not only your reputation, but your interest, that persons should assign you their Heir, out of mere kindness and affection, rather than out of fear or compulsion. Many Families did your Father's bounty raise, many Estates have you yourself bestowed: If any of these men, who owe their whole fortunes to the Crown, be at their death so ungrateful, as to make no return, the affront is passed by unrevenged, those who were appointed Heirs are allowed a quiet possession, and you are content with no other requital, than the glory of doing good unrewarded: And indeed a thankful receiver makes us better pleased with our favours, but a churlish and ungrateful one renders us the more to be admired for them: Though which of your Predecessors cared to prefer the credit of the one before the profit of the other? Which of them did not think he had a just title to recall what he had formerly given? Nay the ivery gifts of our Princes, like those of cajoling Tyrants, have been mere hooks covered over with gaudy baits, snares lined with some specious trepan, till seizing and entangling the good-natured prey, they drew in whatever was so credulous, as to fasten on them.  
44. How much does it conduce to a better deportment to come at ease and prosperity through the rougher road of hardships and trouble? This trial, and this improvement of it did you make: You fared no better than we did, you were surrounded with perpetual fears and dangers, which were then the attending alarms of all the innocent. You knew and had experience how much ill Princes were hated even by those whose flattery made them ill. You remember while a subject, what, with the rest of us, you were wont to wish, and what as apt to complain of. You now are what you judged others ought to be; nay you are better than you even wished those others to have been. And we now so inur'd to the blessings of an easy Government, that whereas before the top of our wishes was a Prince, but indifferent, and somewhat better than the worst, we can now be content with none, but absolutely the best. There is no one therefore so ignorant of your abilities, or so much a stranger to his own infirmities, as to be ambitious of coming after so unparallelled a Precedent. Nay so conscious must they all be of the impossibility of reaching up to your example, that it must be hereafter more easy to be your Successor, than it is before hand to wish the being so. For who would covet to undergo the same weight of care? Or who can presume to acquit himself with any tolerable comparison to your unequalled excellence? Even you yourself were sensible what a difficulty and disadvantage it was to succeed a good Prince, and on that account were backward and unwilling to be Adopted. Is it a pattern so easy to be copied after, that no person is now tempted to debauch himself for a purchase of pardon to his other misdemeanours? Life, and the reputation of life honesty, are both now guarded from all assault and violation. It is not now thought policy for persons of a strict and severe carriage to retire from the notice of the Court, and bury themselves up in private. For there is now the same encouragement given to all virtues, as in the purest of former times. Nor is welldoing rewarded only by the complacence of a good Conscience, but by a farther and more public recompense. You love a fixed and resolute temper in your subjects, and their greatness of spirit you do not, like other Princes, check and restrain, but indulge and promote. The honest and upright meet now with preferment, who heretofore wished for nothing but excuse: On these you confer Honours, Offices, Employments: These your friendship courts, these your judgement esteems, while your favours whet on their industry of being good, and make their integrity more resolved, when they see it so well accepted. Nay the vicious are hereby deterred, as well as the virtuous encouraged. For a reward of the good makes others out of policy honest, as well as a punishment of the bad affrights others on the same grounds from being evil. There be few of so sound a judgement as not to take the measures of Justice and dishonesty, as they respect their interest, and accordingly adhere to the one or the other, as it best suits with their gain and advantage. The far greater numbers of mankind observe what courses will be most beneficial, and when they see the wages of industry paid to sloth, of activeness to sleep, and of temperance to luxury, they take up a counterfeit profession of those arts they see others thrive so well upon; they personate and aim at the seeming like them so long. till at last they become in truth what they designed to be in appearance only.  
45. Most of our former Princes, except your Father, and one or two more, (perhaps I may have over numbered them) were better pleased with the vices, than with the virtues of their subjects: first because it was natural in them to be delighted with those, who were nearest their own humour, and then they supposed such would be most crouching and patient under Tyranny. whose debaucheries had already enslaved them; in the bosom therefore of these they emptied their bounties, and their secrets: But the just and sober were glad to be cloistered up in privacies and retirements, them they never called out on the Stage, but to affront, to accuse, and persecute. Whereas contrary to these shameful abuses, you choose your friends out of the best and most conscientious: And indeed there is some Justice, that they should be the favourites of a good Prince. who were the hatred of a bad one. You, know, that as boundless Tyranny and legal Sovereignty are of a much different nature, so none loves the Prince better, than he, who most abhors the Tyrant. And these you animate and incite to all that's good and glorious, setting yourself as a great Exemplar, and by your own Morals giving proof what course of life, what sort of men, you are best pleased with. You have not therefore taken on you the Censureship or superintendency of Manners, because you would win upon our dispositions more by allurements, than Correction. And indeed it is hard to determine by which of these methods a Governor shall more easily reform a People, by barely suffering them to be good, or by compelling them to be so We are pliable and ductile, prepared to follow wherever our Prince shall lead the way: To be endeared to him, and approved by him is our utmost ambition (which yet is an honour that those, who are not like him can never hope to arrive to) And in short by your steady attention to his example, we all transcribe the same Copy, and strive to resemble that one Original: For indeed we should be very dull and awkard if we, who had readily learned of a bad Prince, should not be as forward in the imitation of a good one. Go on, Caesar, and the influence of your actions shall be as powerful, as the Authority of a Censor: For the Life of a Supreme Governor is indeed a Censorship, and that a standing, unchangeable one, by that we are directed, by that we are swayed, not by the force of command, but the persuasiveness of Precedent. And fear indeed is but an unfaithful guide to virtue: Men are much better wrought upon by examples, which have no convenience that they demonstrate to be feasible, whatever they recommend.  
46. And what terror could have enforced that which a respect to you has easily effected. One 
* Domitian.  of your Predecessors got the People to comply with taking away the spectacle of the Pantomimes, yet was this permission extorted rather than freely granted. But now you are entreated to do, what the other compelled the doing of and that did now commence a favour, which before was a necessity. Nor were there fewer Petitions or less unanimous Addresses to you for the taking them away, than there had been to your Father for restoring them: And herein, though acting directly opposite, you both did well; for what by an evil Prince had been removed, aught to have been restored, and when on that account restored, ought for several other reasons again to be removed; for even where an ill person does well, there may lie a just exception against the Author, but none against the Action. The same people therefore, that were both spectators and applauders of a mimical 
† Nero.  Emperor, do now dislike the trifling Pantomimes, and condemn such effeminate sports, as corruptive, and debasing, of the manly Genius of the times; from whence it is obvious to collect, that the example of Princes does influence the very rabble and vulgar, so that if the one be serious and severe, the other correct their looseness and immediately conform. Proceed now, Caesar, and advance that glory your gravity has gained: Let that steadiness of temper, which has generally been branded for state and pride, be now deservedly esteemed the result of virtue and good Morals. By this voluntary imitation of you, persons have chastised their own vices, who ought to have been chastised out of them: And they have reformed themselves, who needed by punishments to have been reformed by others; so that none find reason to complain of your severity, though all have a freedom to complain: And so indeed does it always happen, that people never complain less of any Prince, than of him, who allows them the greatest liberty so to do. But under your Reign the most malicious can find no occasion of complaint: All management of affairs is a subject of content, all of joy. The good are preferred, and the bad (which is the securest state of society) neither fear nor are feared, knowing they shall not unjustly be accused themselves, nor daring unjustly to accuse others. You remedy all our distempers, yet at our own entreaties, at our own request; and whomever you make good, you add this farther obligation to the favour, that it was not what you imposed or enforced, but what they themselves desir'd.  
47. By your conduct how well ordered the life, how regulated the manners of our Roman youth? What trouble, what charge do you spare for in a Princely Education of them? What encouragement do you give to Masters of Rhetorics? What countenance and advancement to Philosophers? So that under your patronage our studies are animated with life, vigour and a safe repose, which the dull cruelty of former ages persecuted into flight and banishment: While the Prince conscious of his own vices expelled those arts, which would be sure to reprehend them, not so much out of hatred, as fear of coming within their lash and reproof. But these same arts you embrace, entertain, and give attention to: You readily perform whatever they enjoin, and love them as eagerly, as you are deservedly approved by them. Every Professor in each part of learning, after all your other excellent endowments, must more especially commend your easiness of access. With an open and hospitable soul your Father over his Palace Gates set up this Inscription, The Public Buildings, but in vain he had done this, except he had adopted a Son, who would have lived in public: And how well does the course of your life agree with this Motto, so exactly indeed that it seems invented by none, but yourself: For what Courts, what Temples are more open and passable? Not the Capitol itself, that place of your adoption, has more of company, more of resort. There be no Bars, no rough denial of entrance, no hard language nor affronts, and after an escape through a thousand Guards and Sentinels, no excluding at last from the presence Chamber. A prosound stillness is all around you, but the greatest about your Person. Every where such becoming silence, such awful quiet, that the Imperial Court may well present herself, as a pattern of modesty to the smallest family, and most humble cottage.  
48. How familiarly you entertain all comers? How patiently you epect them? Dedicating one entire part of the day to this diversion, though so much taken up with more serious and urgent affairs. So that we come to pay our Addresses, not in a timorous hurry, not as if we ran for our life, and the loss of our heads were to be the forseit of our slackness, but leisurely and as our own conveniency will best admit of. Nay when the Prince does purposely attend our waiting on him, we may make so bold as to absent, if any necessary occasions detain us at home: And for this rudeness we need make no elaborate excuse, your goodness forgives sooner than our submission can acknowledge the offence. For you know it is every man's comfort and ambition, as well as his duty, to visit you frequently, to wait on you often, and therefore to enlarge our joy you give a freer and more repeated admission to your presence. Nor to bestow these customary salutes must we search you out in retirements and solitudes, but we enter your Palace, and there engage in a familiar converse with you, as if your Court were an Ordinary or place of public entertainment for all, which lately that timorous 
* Domitian,  Monster had fortified with whatever might strike a terror and amazement: While turnning his Palace into a lurking den, he sometime there sucked the blood of his nearest relations, and at other times sallied out to worry and devour the noblest prey, he could seize or trepan. Terror and threatenings were without, within dread and danger; so that it seemed alike perilous to be either admitted or excluded. Add to this, the monster himself was fatal to meet, ghastly to look on, pride in his Forehead, fury in his Eyes, a womanish paleness in his Body, impudence shining through his Face in fiery redness, that argued more of blood, than blush: None could presume to approach him, none might dare to salute him, never peeping out of his dark retirements, never creeping forth from his belov'd confinement, except by rapine and desolation to make as great a solitude of those places he should visit, as of those he left.  
49. Yet within these walls and apartments he harboured the Traitors, he nursed up the conspiracy, and enclosed with himself the revenger of his Villainies, Providence. His long called for punishment broke through the Guards, and rushed on through bolts and fastened Gates, as easily as if open doors and a clear passage had seemed to egg and invite it. His usurped pretence of divinity could then avail him nothing, and in vain did he hope for shelter in those Closets and withdrawing Rooms, where he had wont so often to retire out of a fear, a scorn, and a hatred of mankind. How much more safe, how much more secure is the same Palace, now it is no longer impannell'd with trenches and baricadoes, no longer fenced with the engines of cruelty, but fortified alone by the arts of love? While experience hereby learns this one great Truth that a Prince's strongest Guard is his own Innocence: And to need no defence is the most inaccessible fort, the strongest bulwark. In vain does he encompass himself with terror, who is not first furrounded with loyalty and love: His jealousies serve but to augment his dangers, and arms of defence invite on weapons of execution. Nor are they your serious hours only, which you spend in our sight and society: Do you not join company with us as frequently in your repasts and diversions? Are not your meals always public, and your table free for all comers? Do you not take as great a pleasure in feasting us, as we do a pride in being your guests? Are you not willing and patient to hear our impertinencies, and do you not invite us on to a freedom of diseourse? The time allotted to these banquets does not your humanity toward us enlarge, as much as temperance toward yourself would abridge and contract? You do not make a full meal by yourself in private, and then sit gravely at the upper end of a public table, making remarks and observations on the humours and behaviours of the guests. You do not belch from an overcharged stomach, and affront rather than feast your deluded friends by setting before them such dishes, which you yourself scorn to touch or taste of: Nor hating the hurry and uneasiness of such crowded entertainments do you withdraw to hidden rarities, and a retired gluttony. Farther we admire not the costliness of your plate dishes, nor the exquisite cookery, nor the stately serving them up, but your endearing pleasantness, your obliging civility, which we can never nauseate, never surfeit upon: All your good humours being natural, unseigned, and occasionally poised with a becoming gravity. Your table is not tainted with foreign superstition, nor debauched with light gestures, or loose talk, but there is a gracious welcome, an inossensive jocose rallying, and many times learned and profitable discourse. After this wel-husbanded expense of the day, you betake yourself to sleep and repose, which are always short and sparing, as if you grudged the loss of time never more, than when you spent it out of our sight and company.  
50. And if we thus share in the enjoyment of whatever you possess, how absolute, how unencroached upon is our own propriety? You do not by any illegal methods shuffle out the true owners, to engross and seize upon any pleasant ponds, delightful lakes, or goodly forests; nor do the floods, the Fountains, and the Ocean serve only for the prospect of one Imperial Landlord. Caesar can now fee more than he will strictly call his own, and he is satisfied that his Empire should be of a larger extent than his Crown-lands. Nay he has refunded into the Empire much of his own hereditary Estate, which his Predecessors held, not so much to enjoy themselves as to hinder others from the enjoyment of them. Therefore the stately Seats and Manors of Noblemen their proper Lords inhabit: Nor are the fair Mansions of great persons either impaired by the prodigal abuse of servants, or decayed by the ruinating mischief of standing empty. We may now view these noble edifices lifting up their long drooping heads, and rising, like those Birds of the East, out of their own ashes. Herein, Caesar, you highly merit not only of the Inhabitants, but of the very houses, by repairing the ruins, banishing their solitude, and reprieving from a burial in the dust these magnificent structures with as much of gallantry of soul, as they first were built with: These very roofs and walls, though mute and senseless, do in a manner tell forth your praise, and as loudly proclaim their own joy, that they are brushed up to a decency and neatness, that they are made tenantable, and have the honour to be inhabited by Gentlemen, not by slaves. This Prince now frankly exposes to sale the whole Inventory of those goods, which were the cursed extortion of that 
* Domitian,  other, who still scraped on for bigger heaps, though he had already more than he knew how to use. Then it was death or, at the lightest, sequestration to have a larger house or fairer seat: But now our Prince seeks out those persons, who were thus wrongfully expelled, and with justice reinstates them in their former possessions. Those grounds, which were the Garden of a late prosuse 
† Nero.  Emperor, and those other adjacent fields, which seemed the Suburbs of Caesar, not of the City, we can now either hire, buy or build upon, So great is the Royal goodness, so secure is the condition of the present times, that the Prince both thinks us worthy of Imperial possessions, and we ourselves are not afraid of being thought so. Nor do you allow us only to purchase, but oft make us as firm a title by deed of gift, parting without any mercenary regard with much of that Estate, which by your choice and adoption was conferred on you. You make over that to others, which your merits procured to yourself, as if you thought nothing more your own, than what you enjoy by the proxy of your friends.  
51. Yet is our Prince as provident in building, as he is thirsty in preserving: Therefore our streets do not rattle, our City does not tremble with the noise and weight of overladed Carriages, our houses are unshocked, our Temples no longer aguish or palsical. Though. you succeeded a Prince, who was but little solicitous of advancing his Revenues, yet you find enough remaining for your occasions, nay can spare something out of that small stock, he left you: And as your Father debarred himself from the full exaction of what the fortune of the Empire gave him, so have you abridged yourself in the use and expense of what your Father bequeathed you. But notwithstanding this good husbandry in private concerns, how sumptuous and magnificent are you in whatever relates to the public? Here Castles, there Temples, with so much of dispatch and expedition, as if they could not be thought to be new built, but only repaired. Here the beautifying and enlargement of the great Cirque makes it so proud and lofty, that it dare challenge and vie with any of the best dedicated Mansions of the Gods: It is now a place fit for entertainment of the Conquerors of the World: Nor is the place itself a less ravishing sight, than the most gaudy of those shows, that are there exhibited. Yet to view and admire the Architecture is not more delightful, than to see that the Seats allotted to Prince and people are of the same level, all equal and uniform, no difference nor distance observed, no chair of State assigned for the Emperor, he can now no more claim any one particular place, than he can engross the whole show. Your subjects therefore have now as good a prospect, as yourself; nay they feed their eyes on you, as well as on the sports: For you are not penned up in a box or litter, but sit open and unconfined among the rest of the spectators, the rest of the people, the people, for whose reception you have added five thousand benches: For you knew their greater numbers would now take up more room, being advanced by the encouragement of your Largesses, and by the same hopes of your bounty still invited to increase their samilies, to multiply their offspring.  
52. If any former Prince had been thus generous, his head should have been encircled with rays of divinity, his shrine of Gold or Ivory had crowded in among the Gods, his Altars should have been gaily decked, his Victims fat and costly. Whereas you come not into our Temples to receive, but pay devotion: The highest honour your modest Statues claim is to wait at the outer porch and entrance, and there to stand (as it were) Sentry for the Gods. Hence are the Deities more profoundly adored by men, when they see that an Emperor, though never so Majestic, will not presume to encroach Heaven, or to intrude among the number of Gods. Of your Statues therefore we see but one or two, and those of mean brass, placed at the outside of the Capitol; whereas but a little while since, every passage, every ascent, every corner of the Temple was decked or rather defiled with cast gold and silver, when the shrines of the Gods were debauched with the intermixed Statues of an incestuous Prince. However your few brazen ones stand inviolate, and will so remain as long as the Temple itself endures, while theirs of gold and such like precious materials are, all the legions of them, rudely battered down, and made a sacrifice to public joy. It was a sport and pastime to humble those exalted heads, to make them prostrate and kiss the ground, to maul them with hammers, to hew them with hatchets, as if at every stroke blood and pain had been to follow. None was so moderate in the venting of his raptures, none so sober in his overflowing joys, but that he thought it a luscious piece of revenge to see their mangled limbs, their dissevered joints, and finally their grim and ghastly images devested of all their borrowed Majesty, and thrown into the flames to be melted down into better use and service. With the like piety, Caesar, you will not permit us to make any return of thanks for our obligations to your sacred Genius, but order us to direct the Address only to the high and mighty Jove: What we owe to you, we must pay to him, though to him no otherwise due, than as you, the dispenser of all other gifts, were yourself indeed a gift of his. Whereas formerly numerous herds of sacrifice were driven in such shoals to the Capitol, that the common roads were two narrow for their passage, and they were forced to hurry them through bye-lanes and allies to reach the place allotted for their slaughter, where the thirsty Altars of our 
* Domitian.  Imperial Lord God were bedewed with as much blood of Beasts, as he had shed of Men.  
53. Whatever (my Lords) I have or shall deliver in reflections upon former Princes, it is done with this honest intent to show how much our Prince has improved the Morals, and bettered the condition of preceding times: And indeed praises are never well drawn, or set off to due advantage, except when shadowed by comparisons. Nay it is one part of the duty of subjects toward the best of Emperors to exclaim against those, who were most unlike him. For indeed they never enough revere good Princes, who do not detest the evil. Besides, there is no greater instance of our emperor's high deserts, than that under his Reign it is safe and allowable to inveigh against so many of his Predecessors, as were unjust and Tyrannical. We cannot yet forget, nor without abhorrence remember, the late cruelty on Nero's 
* Epaphroditus an Assistant in the dispatch of Nero, and on that account Executed by Domitian, though were this the alone reason, and nothing superadded of cruelty o● malice, his death may well be just●●fied.  Freeman. Can we think he would have suffered his actions to have been censured, who so zealously revenged his death? He did wisely indeed to stifle all reports; for he might well have interpreted that to have been spoke of himself, which was spoke of one so nearly like him. Therefore this one virtue (Caesar) I must needs compare, nay prefer, to all your other, that we have now liberty to vindicate ourselves of oppressive Emperors for past grievances, and by their example to admonish future Princes, that there is no place, no time, wherein the ashes of bloody Tyrants shall not be raked out, and exposed for the trampling subject of curses and reproach. Therefore (my Lords) since we can as freely utter our complaints, as we do our joys, let us as well murmur at what we once suffered, as triumph at what we now enjoy: We may do both indifferently under a good Prince. Let this be the Subject of our whispers, and of our louder acclamations, of our private discourse, and more public harangues: Remembering that the present Prince is then best commended, when his ill deserving Predecessors are most lashed and chastised. And on the contrary whenever the times are cautious of smartly animadverting upon wicked Princes, it is a shrewd sign that the present is as bad, as were the former.  
54. What greater stretches, what farther improvement of flattery could have been then made, when the daubing Encomiums of Emperors were the main subject of Plays, Banquets, Drolls, Dances, and were apishly canted forth with all the bussoonery of ridiculous voice, garb, and gesture? Nay it was yet a greater scandal, that they were tickled with praises in the Senate, as well as on the Stage, by the graver Consul, as well as by the jilting Actor. But far from such profanation have you removed these mock vanities. Therefore not thick, and luscious bombast, but serious remarks, and the eternal memoirs of impartial history will deliver down your name, and embalm your memory. While the more silent the Scenes and Stages are, the more shall the Theatres themselves resound your glory: That glory which your coldness to accept does the more inflame: For of those honours, which we offer, and would almost obtrude upon you, some you admit of with a great deal of reluctance, and others you entirely refuse. Formerly there was nothing so vulgar, nothing so trivial debated in Senate, but that all, who were asked their Vote, must have ushered in their answers with a glossy harangue upon the Prince. The business of the great Counsel was perhaps nothing more weighty than to advise about increasing the number of gladiatours or incorporating some company of Mechanics, or such like petty trifles: And yet as if the bounds of the Empire were enlarged, and some mighty exploit performed, we built in honour of the Emperor prodigious triumphal Arches that would overtop the very Temples, and we some time dedicated so many months, two or three perhaps at once, to be new named from, the Titles of the Prince: While all this they not only by connivance admitted, but seemed to challenge them as their right and desert. But now which of us diverts from the cause in agitation, and falls to an unseasonable descant upon the Prince? It is a resolute modesty in you not to hearken to flatteries, and since they are so customary to bestow on Princes, it is a boldness in us to dare the forbearance of them. We now meet in Senate not to fawn and be basely fulsome in our compliments, but to be intent on the concerns proposed, and faithfully dispatch the business of the consult. To your candour and integrity we owe, that you never dissemble, but we can trust and believe that you heartily approve those things, you allow, and as reasonably dislike whatever you condemn. We there begin, we there end our consultations, where under another Prince it was lawful neither to begin nor end. Some of your Predecessors, it is true, were so modest in pretence, that they would not accept those honours, we decreed for them, but there was none so selfdenying, as not to take some satisfaction in their being decreed. Whereas your disrelish of the offer, as well as shame of acceptance, is so signal and unparallelled a virtue, that it adds more to your glory, than all the most specious Titles. While your name becomes hereby transmitted to future ages, not engraved on Marbles, and bulky Pillars, but treasured up in the more lasting memorial of Books and Annals.  
55. The report will reach down to the longest ages of the World, that there was once a Prince, who in the height of glories, the midst of triumphs, had usually none, or if any, those mean and sparing honours conferred on him. And indeed if we should designedly lay out for glittering trophies, for lofty titles, we must needs fall short of the more copious vein of former times: For dissimulation in this respect is far more ingenious than truth; slavery than freedom, fear than love. Beside, all invention being long since drawn dry by the strains and efforts of flattery, we can find but one fresh and unsullied, but one unpresidented, honour to bestow on you, and that is to dare to say nothing. Yet if our transports of Loyalty do sometime break silence, your modesty yields, and some part of our offers you graciously receive, to give proof that it is not out of pride or disdain you wave the highest honours, since you can sometime stoop to accept the lowest; and this (Caesar) argues more of discretion, than if you refused all, for to refuse all would savour of surly pride or ambition of being thought above them, but to comply with an acceptance of the smallest imports much of goodness, much of moderation. By which frugal temper you are both a friend to us, and a good husband to your own Exchequer, for you hereby limit the expenses thereof not draining it in vain projects to be replenished by extortion from the innocent. Your Effigies therefore are of the same cheap materials with those, which have been dedicated to private persons, in gratitude for some eminent meriting of the public. Your Statues (though a Caesar) are now, but of the same vulgar metal with the Bruti and Camilli: Nor indeed does the occasion of them much differ; for they expelled Tyrants, and drove a victorious enemy from our walls; you have quelled and for ever banished Tyranny itself, and all the heavy effects of a slavish yoke, and have so settled the Prince, that there is no room for the Tyrant. But when I reflect on your wisdom and judicious conduct, it seems no longer strange, that you should disown or moderate these brittle and fading titles; for you know wherein the firm and immortal glory of a Prince consists: You know what goes to the making up those honours, which no rage of flames, no teeth of time, no envy of Successors, can ever fully or eclipse. Arches and Statues, nay Altars and Temples, though never so magnificent, oblivion will soon shroud and inter, posterity will censure or forget. Whereas he, that can triumph over his own ambition, he who makes a conquest of his own will and passions, his fame shall still increase with the rolling years, and his praises be rehearsed by those, who must needs be impartial, succeeding generations. Farther, there be no Monarches, but that their memory, either good or bad, will be sure to pass down to future ages. A Prince therefore must not barely covet that fame, which is eternal; for that he cannot avoid, but he must provide for that, which is good, and commendable: And this is to be procured, not by Monuments and Statues, but by virtue and desert. For after all those other trifles, the shape and figure of a Prince can never be so lively represented in gold or other metal, as in the hearts of his subjects, those inward tables, where it is your happiness (Great Sir) to be deeply engraved. Your Majestic air, your becoming aspect, being legibly imprinted in the tongues, eyes and very souls of all your people.  
56. I suppose your Lordships have observed, that I stand not to make choice of what heads I deliver, having resolved to praise the Prince, not his actions: For even the bad may do those things, that are justly commendable, but the Actors themselves can never be praised, unless completely good. Therefore Dread Sovereign, there is no glory adorns you more, than that in the presentment of our thanks, we have nothing to conceal, nothing to omit. For what stain or blemish is there in your whole Reign, which any speaker need palliate or suppress? What minute, what moment, of time has been a barren Theme for praise, a fruitless camp of glory? All your designs so accurately modelled, all your actions so illustrious, that he seems best to commend them, who does but faithfully recite them. Hence is it that my speech has already swelled to this proportion, and yet I have dispatched but your first two years. How much have I already said of your moderation, and yet how much have I yet more to say? As that of your undertaking a second Consulship, when thereto appointed by your Princely Father: And this you did merely in obedience to his commands; for when the Gods had transferred to your shoulders the Sovereign Power, and you were thereby come to a disposal of yourself, as well as to the management of an Empire, you refused a third Consulship, though your happy acquitment in the two former so well accomplished you for another discharge of that office. It is great and generous to wave Authority, greater yet to wave that, which would be certainly attended with renown and glory. Which should I most admire, your Consulships executed, or your Consulship refused? Executed, not in a soft repose at Rome, not in the dull intrigues of peace, but among barbarous Nations, amidst the toils of War: As those Primitive Heros, who from Consuls commencing Generals, exchanged their Gown for a Cloak, and so marched to far distant Lands to discover, fight and conquer. It was honourable for our Empire, glorious for yourself, that our Allies and Confederates saw you dispense justice in their own Country and their own doors. The mien and presence of a Consul must needs have then commanded an awe and respect, when his Tribunal was erected in the open Camp, and his person guarded not only with the rods and axes, but the more solemn attendance of Piles and Ensigns. The Grandeur of the Judge was enhanced by the diversity of Petitioners of all climes and languages, few being able to express themselves without the help of an Interpreter. It is noble to prescribe Laws to your subjects, how much more to your enemies? It looks big to hear Causes in the peaceful Forum, how much more Stately and terrible to place the Ivory chair on the wide Campagne, and there to distribute justice, where you so lately showed your valour. It might in peace be safe and hazardless to encamp upon the banks of the Rhine or Danube, but how bold, how Heroick is it to despise the sury of Barbarians, to check and repress their daring attempts, not more with the glittering of Arms, than with the awe of Gowns? Nor did our Legions reverence your picture only drawn in their Shields and Ensigns, but had you in Person, and with joy full acclamations to your own face proclaimed you General, a name which others might deserve from the conquering, but you alone from the despising, of the enemy.  
57 Thus did you merit in the Execution of your first and second Consulships, and this farther do you deserve for the adjournment of your third, that being newly advanced to the Empire, you thought you might be excused from any other encumbrance, and were far from the desire of additional honours: you refused therefore that office, when yet some of our Emperors have been so greedy of it, as to thrust themselves in after the putting by those, who were regularly Elect. Nay there was 
* Nero.  one, who toward the end of his Reign was so eager for the place that he turned out a Consul when his year was just expiring, and seized the short remainder. This honourable office therefore which former Princes, both at the entrance and exit of their Reigns, have been so fond of, that when fairly supplied, they have encroached and wrested themselves into, this you, when vacant, pass by, and leave for the discharge of private subjects. Was it that you thought it invidious to allow Trajan a third Consulship, or the Prince a first? As to your second, we know you were a General, when preferred to it, yet under the authority of a Royal Master; and therefore in this you can challenge to yourself nothing of honour or example, save that of loyalty and obedience. In this City, which has seen the same men five or six times Consuls, not such only, who in our declining liberty usurped the honour by force and violence, but those, who, when retired and absent, were elected without their ambition, without their knowledge: In this very City do you the Monarch of the World reject a third Consulship, as too great, too invidious. Can a mighty Caesar, an Emperor, a Father of his Country be more moderate, than the Papirii or Quintii, who though not over ambitious to procure, were yet proud of, this honour, when conferred on them? But, you'll say perhaps, the occasions of the Commonwealth required their repeated advancements: Well but were not you invited by as many urgent occasions of the Commonwealth, of the Senate, nay of the Consulship itself, which seemed sensible that your acceptance of it would leave a lustre and glory to the place for ever?  
58. I would not encourage you to follow his 
* Domitian.  example, who by a continued Consulship made a kind of prolonged and undistinguished year: Yet whenever you undertake this charge, I can justly compare you with those best of your Predecessors, who have supplied it not to advance or interest themselves, but to serve and oblige the public. There was in the Senate one, who had been thrice Consul, when you refused the third Consulship: An insufferable affront indeed our votes would have imposed on your modesty, that you the Prince should be as many times Consul, as one of your subjects; this would have been too excessive a strain of bashfulness, had you even been but a private person. Before your ascent to the Empire, while the Son of a Consular and triumphant Father, had you been created Consul, you must have served out the employ, nay it would have seemed the reward of your merits, and suitable to your noble birth: Whereas now though so much better qualified, and more deserving the honour, yet private persons are allowed to open the year, and from their names to give a date and computation to the Calendar. And this indeed was an instance of our liberty restored, that not the Prince but a fellow-subject was our Consul. Thus when the last of Tyrants was expelled, the year ran free and unshackled from arbitrary sway: Thus when we were redeemed from slavery our Calendar commenced with the names of private men. Wretched ambition was it in those Emperors, who would continue their Consulship as long as their Reign: Though perhaps it was not ambition more than envy and ill nature to engross every year to themselves, and not to lay down their ornamental badge, the Purple Robes, till sullied, defaced, and quite worn out. Which shall I most admire in you, your magnanimity, your modesty, or your bounty? It was magnanimity to abstain from an honour so much affected by others, it was modesty to wave the acceptance, and it was bounty to let others enjoy it.  
59 But it is now time so far to oblige the Consulship as by a voluntary management of it to improve its credit and reputation. For if you always stand out, it may have a sinister interpretation, and be well suspected that you think it too mean, and beneath your Grandeur. It is certain you refused it rather because you thought it above you, yet will none be induced to believe so, except you can be prevailed on at last to comply. When you excuse yourself from triumphal Arches, from Trophies, and from Statues, we may afford to pardon your modesty, because those indeed are bestowed on yourself without any appendage of benefit to others. But we now entreat on a public account, that you would set a Predecent to future Princes, to renouce an unactive ease, to adjourn interrupting pleasures, to awake from the slumber of Court debauches, and for some small time at least fairly to put on that Purple, which their Predecessors have stole back to themselves after they had conferr'd it on others; let them regularly mount that Seat of justice, which they should guard from Usurpers, let them approve themselves in conduct, what they affect to be in title, nor any longer desire to be Consuls only for the name and shadow of honour. You have discharged a second Consulship I know, but the prudence of it was experienced not by Rome, not by us, but by your Armies, by your Provinces, by remote and foreign Nations. We have heard indeed that you failed in no one point of the office of a Consul; but, alas, we have only heard so: It is reported indeed that you were most just, most gracious, most patient, yet is it all report: It is not fit we should always resign up our faith to a spreading fame and rumour; but let our own experience, our own eyes at last confirm the hearsay. How long shall we admire what was at a distance performed? Give us to make a nearer proof whether that second Consulship has raised you into conceitedness and pride. One intervening year may have great influence on the Morals of men, much more of Princes. It is commonly delivered, that the virtues are so connexed that he who has really one, must needs have all. Yet we desire to experience once more, whether a good Consul and a good Prince are one and the same thing: For besides the difficulty of managing two separate, and yet both Sovereign Powers, there is likewise some diversity in the powers themselves, since with allowance to the character of each, that action might well become a Prince, which would be improper, perhaps absurd in a Consul.  
60. I am sensible that the main reason you could object that next year for refusal of the Consulship, was because you could not fairly discharge it in your absence. But being now returned to the City and restored to our eager wishes, what farther cause can be alleged, why you should not satisfy our importunities, and let us taste those blessings, we are so impatient for. It is beneath you to come into the Senate, unless you have Power to assemble it; to be present at their debates except you sit Judge of them: Or to hear them vote and canvas, unless you are to determine, and confirm their resolves. If you would have that tribunal of justice, the Consul's Chair, restored to its pristine Splendour and Majesty, grace it with your presence. If you would preserve inviolate a respect to the Magistrate, a vigour to the Laws, a restraint to Offenders, be you the sole dispenser of right and justice. As it would be very odd in you, if a private person, to be our Consul without being Senator, so it is altogether as unseemly to be our Prince without being a Consul. With these weighty reasons after long struggling was our Prince's modesty at last overcome: But how overcome? Not to debase himself to an equal level with private men, but to advance private men to an equal pitch with himself. He accepted the third Consulship, that he might countenance others being thrice Consuls. He knew their reluctancy, he knew their bashfulness, that they would not presume to be a third time Consuls, except as Colleagues with one, who was so. This signal mark of honour has been but very seldom allowed, and then not only to Fellows-general, and partners of sweat and danger; but this have you conferr'd on persons of obscurer note, who have served you indeed stoutly and loyally, yet as wrapped in the peaceful Gown, never as engaged in the broils of War. Their faithfulness, their integrity you are willing to think yourself obliged to recompense: Yet few Prince's care to own an obligation, or, if they own it, can yet seldom affect the person, who bestowed it. Whereas you, Caesar, both confess the kindness and repay it. Therefore when you made that last pair a third time Consuls, you did it not so much to acquit yourself a mighty Prince, as to approve yourself a grateful friend. Nay by the greatness of your bounty you seem to improve and augment the past services of your subjects: For they are apt to think that their own merits bear some proportion to your rewards, and so judge the one more considerable, because the other are so magnificent. What Prayers can I make for so generous a Donour, but that you may ever oblige, ever be obliged, and leave it doubtful, whether it be more advantage to your subjects to have done kindnesses to you, or to receive favours from you.  
61. Methinks I viewed the Senate in its ancient Splendour, when I saw one thrice Consul sitting Precedent, and first ask the suffrage of those, who were a third time designed Consuls. How bright was their honour, how much more outshining was yours? It happens unavoidably that bodies vast and losty, when evershadowed by those that are more exalted, shrink in appearance, and seem the less for the others greatness: So the most Eminent of your subjects compared with your overtopping Grandeur are humbled into a loss of their wont height, and the more nigh they would aspire to your elevation, the more visibly they slide from their own. Yet even those you could not rear to an equal pitch with yourself, you have at least so far advanced, that they as much overlook others, as you do them. If in this your third Consulship you had made but one thrice Consul with yourself, it had argued a great and communicative soul. For as it is an argument of happiness to have as much power as will, so is it of goodness to have as much will as power. He is to be commended, who merited the third Consulship; but he more, under whom it was merited. He is great and remarkable who received such a reward of deserts, but he much greater, that bestowed it. But thinking it too scanty to have admitted a single person only to a share of this dignity, you made two several Colleagues to your sacred self. So that beyond doubt this was the sole reason of your continuance in the office longer than the usual time, that you might have two Successive Partners, and bear your turn of Government with them both. Each of these had discharged his second Consulship under your Royal Father, but how much less honourable that, than now under your more auspicious Reign? Their just resigned fasces seemed yet in their sight, their lately dismissed Lictors seemed still to echo in their Ears, when they were reinstated in their chair, reendowed with Purple. So of old, when an Enemy was upon the assault, and our Republic alarmed with the unexpected danger, they Elected such persons as the office had before experienced and consulted the security of the public so much more than the honour of the elect, that they seemed not to restore the men to their Consulships; but their Consulships to the men. Such is the efficacy of your goodness, that what before was the effect of necessity, is now the result of a free and unforced bounty. They had just put off their Purple Robes, they must on with them again; the Lictors were but now discharged, they must be again retained: Their friends were scarce got home from their visits to Congratulate and joy them, when straight they must return and repeat the Ceremony. Was this a goodness less than divine, was this but a humane power, to make so quick a repetition of our joys, to revive our hopes when but just expired, to give no respite to our Congratulations, nor to suffer a longer interval of reassuming the Consulships, than the very instant time of Resignation? Thus may you ever do, nor in such a course may your soul or your fortune ever faint or tyre. May you give third Consulships to many, and when you have given them to many, may there yet remain many and many more, who shall as well deserve them.  
62. In all favours that are impartially bestowed as an encouraging reward to merit, the content and satisfactïon is not greater to the present Receivers, than it is to all, who are, or may be, alike deservers of them. So in the disposal of these Consulships the joy was not confined to the particular members thus preferred, but was communicated to the whole Senate, who were as well pleased, as much obliged, as if the same honour had been conferred on every single man: For these they had the best opinion of, the greatest kindness for, these had they unanimously chose for trusties of managing and retrenching the public expenses: And their being so much countenanced by the Senate made them the more endeared to Caesar. We have had of late very frequent proofs that the judgement of the Senate was always opposed by that of the Prince: Nay there used to be nothing more fatal for the crushing and keeping back a rising man,. than for the Prince to suspect that he was popular and a leading man in the Senate: He always hated our Favourites, and to be even, we as seldom relished his. But now Prince and Senate take no other measures for their love than eminent merit, and strive to oblige most the most deserving. We agree in our sentiments of men, we trust each others character of them, and what is an argument of our united judgements and affections, we both like, we both love, the same. Therefore, my Lords, dare to own our inclinations, and openly profess your friends. You need not dissemble your good opinion for fear it be a prejudice to yourselves, nor conceal your dislike lest it prove an advantage to others. Caesar allows or dissapproves the same with the Senate. While you are present, or even when absent, he consults and advises with you: He made them a third time Consuls, whom your votes had so ordained, and he made them in the same order, wherein your wisdom did appoint. His generosity is either way to be admired, whether he love none so well, as those he knows we most respect, or though he may love some better, does at least prefer none before them. Rewards are proposed to the aged, examples to the younger; all may own their acquaintance, and make their visits without secrecy or suspicion. Every one, who gives the highest respect, the freest welcome to the friends of the Senate, does with the same civility oblige the Prince, who accepts the honour done to good men as done to himself; and at the same time reputes it no glory to be greater than others, unless they also be great, who are to confess him greater. Go on, Caesar, in these honest resolves, and rest assured we so are, as common fame reports us to be, from hence borrow your thoughts, from hence your estimate of us, and give no credit to those sly insinuations, that entrap not those they are whispered against, sooner than those, who listen to them. It is safer to believe all than some: For particular persons may both impose, and be imposed upon; but none has deceived all, all can deceive none.  
63. I return now to your Consulship, though indeed there be many things preceding, which relate to it, and aught by way of Introduction to be first insisted on. As namely that you appeared at the assemblies for Election as a Candidate not only of the Consulship, but of glory, immortality, and a famed example, which good Princes cannot but imitate, and even the bad must needs admire. The people of Rome beheld you in the solemn place of Election, where you patiently attend to all those Ceremonies, which on this occasion are used, and are content to be made a Consul with the same customary rites as one of us. Which of your Predecessors would ever condescend to do this honour to the office, or to the people? Did not some buried up in sleep, and overcloyed with a yesterdays debauch, lie snorting till the news was brought up to their bed sides? While others indeed set up and watched, but within the walls of their own Chambers, where they plotted and contrived the banishment of those very Consuls, who declared them their Successors. O vile ambition and degenerate from the true spirit of Majesty, to covet that honour you so much disdain, to disdain that honour, you so much covet! And when from your garden walks you could overlook the field of Election, yet to come no nearer to it, than if you were disjoined by the broadest streams of the Rhine or Danube. Do you hate the bestowing of those votes, you are so impatient for? And content in your retirements to have the news of your Election brought, will you not at all appear in public, nor allow to a free City so much as the liberty of dissembling their joy? Lastly, during the whole time of Election must you needs so sculk and cloister yourself up, as if the design of their meeting was not an agreement to advance you to the Consulship, but a conspiracy to depose you from the Empire? Our Imperial Lords had this proud fancy, that they ceased to be Princes, whenever they stooped to do any thing like ordinary Senators. Yet many absented themselves not so much out of pride perhaps as fear, being conscious of their whordoms and incest, they durst not presume to pollute the auguries, nor with their unhallowed feet to tread such sacred ground. They were not yet flushed on to that height of impiety, as in that spacious camp to defy all discovery of their villainies, and stand the eyes of men, and the acuter Gods. On the contrary your innocence your devotion prompt you to be present, where the business of the State is dispatched, and the service of Religion performed. Other Princes have merited the Consulship before they received it, but you in the very act and manner of receiving.  
64. All the trouble of Ceremony might have been spared, if you would have pleaded that exemption, you might have challenged as a Prince. And indeed it was so little expected, that the Assembly was just dissolving and going off, when to the wonder and surprise of us all, you come up to the Consul's Chair, and there offered to take the oath in that form, which was before unknown to Princes, except when they imposed it on others. You see now how necessary it was you should not have refused the Consulship, for we could never have imagined you would have done thus, had your refusal prevented the experience. I am amazed (my Lords) nor am I yet satisfied, whether I may credit my own eyes or ears, but am apt to question whether all be not a delusion, that I have heard and seen. An Emperor, a Caesar, an Augustus, a Pontifex Maximus, stood up before the Consul's feet, the Consul sat while the Prince himself was standing, he sat steady and unmoved, as if he had been accustomed so to do: And thus sitting he administered the oath, which the Prince devoutly took, and loudly repeated these words, wherein he devoted his life and family to the bitterest curse of divine vengeance, if he violated that faith, which he now solemnly gave. Your glory (Caesar) is bright, and for ever uneclipst, whether succeeding Princes shall deviate from, or conform to, this great example. What tongue can declare, what words can express, that you would do the same when a third time Consul, as when the first: The same, when a Prince, as when a private man: The same when an Emperor, as when the subject of an Emperor! I protest I know not which is more honourable, which more generous, that you did that for which you had no Precedent to follow, or that, in loudly rehearsing what another more softly dedicated, you followed the precedent of that person, who prompted and read the form of oath to you.  
65. In the Forum likewise with the same submission you paid obedience to the Laws, those Laws (Caesar) which were never hoped, or indeed designed to be obligations to Princes. But you would allow yourself no greater exemption, than one of us, though for this we could willingly afford you the larger allowance. This is the first time I ever heard, the first, I ever knew a Prince not above his Laws, but the Laws above their Prince. Caesar when Consul claims no higher privilege than others. He swears to an observance of the Laws in the hearing of the Gods, (and whom shall the Gods better hearken to than to an appealing Caesar?) He swears in the presence of those persons, who are to swear the same, and he is conscious that none ought more religiously than himself to keep the oath, because none is more concerned than himself in the ill consequence of breaking it. And therefore at the resignation of your office, you again swore that you had punctually performed your former oath. It was an act of resolution to make such a promise, and of integrity to observe it. To frequent so often the Courts of Justice, to repair to that Tribunal, which the pride of former Princes thought scorn to approach, here to receive, here to lay down your dignity, how worthy your great self, how different was it from their customs who, when the Consulship had been mounted (or rather trampled upon) by them for a few days, grew weary and disclaimed it by Edict? The same course they took for the convention of the Senate, the summons of Election, and the taking of the oath, that the ordering of these latter might be answerable to the former, and they only known to have been Consuls, because theirs, and no other, names began the Calendar.  
66. I have not (my Lords) passed over the consulship of our Prince, but only for some time deferred it, that I might bring into one place all that concerned his oath. For we must not, as on a dry and barren subject, spin and vamp out the same topic of praise, nor be guilty of a dull tautology in the mention of one thing twice. How glorious was the dawn of that morning wherein your third Consulship commenced? When entering the Senate you addressed yourself now jointly, then severally, encouraging all to reassume their sinking liberty, to take their respective shares in bearing up the drooping Empire, to awake and be more intent on the public good. All before you might perhaps give the same formal advice, but none before you was ever believed to be in earnest. There was yet floating in our eyes the shipwrecks of many noble Senators, who when wheedled into a prospect of the greatest calm, were dashed and sunk by an unexpected storm. For the smoothest Seas were not more treacherous, than the smiles of those Princes, who had so much of subtlety, so much of trepan, that it was more safe to have them profestly angry, than pretendedly well pleased. But wherever you invite, secure and courageous we follow and attend. You bid us use our freedom, we accept the offer; you command us to speak our thoughts, we do so: And our never having so done before was not a cold indifference, nor dull heaviness of temper, no it was a terror, a fear, a slavish caution, a prudential policy taught by dangers, that made us sit unconcerned, and turn our eyes, ears and hearts from all regard to the gasping Republic. Whereas now supported by your hand, and relying on your gracious leave, we release our lips so long shackled up in slavery, we unloose our tongues so long bridled in with dread of mischiefs and dangers. You would have us be sincerely as you profess and advise; your encouragements would neither dissemble nor betray: You have no reserves, nothing of slyness, nothing of treachery to gull the credulous, and at last to ensnare the contriver himself; for fraud was always repaid in its own coin, and scarce was there ever any Prince deceived, but he who had first deceived others.  
67. And that this was the genuine sense of our Prince's instructions to us might be collected not more from his words, than from his manner of delivery. How tuneable and well poised was the cadence of every period? How unaffected was the truth of every sentence! What an energy in his very accent! What an earnestness in his looks! What a confirmation in his eyes, habit, gesture, and the air of his whole body! He will therefore always be mindful of what he encouraged us to, and will be ready to acknowledge, that whenever we make use of that freedom he gave, we therein pay our allegiance, and observe but his commands. Nor will he censure us for wavering or unsteady, if we exert that licence the present times allow, though he remembers we so lately did otherwise through fear and compulsion. We used to pray for th● security of the Empire, the safety of the people, nay for the preservation of the Emperors, and for their sake, of the Empire. But now see how boldly we have altered the tenor of our prayers! In those petitions, which relate to a blessing on the Prince, we interpose this clause or condition, If he Govern well and for the benefit of all. These are prayers that deserve to be offered, deserve to be answered. The Republic (Caesar) by your own express order has made a covenant with the Gods, that they shall keep you in peace and safety, while you keep your subjects so, and when otherwise, they shall withdraw their providence, recall their protection, and let you sink under a load of curses and imprecations. Other Princes wished and endeavoured to survive the Republic; but you neither relish nor enjoy your own health, except attended with the common safety. You suffer no prayers to be made for you, except the contents of them imply an advantage to those that make them. And solemnly every year you appeal to the Gods, desiring them to pass sentence, and depose you, if you have ceased to be otherwise, than when they first preferred you. Thus with a spotless and unaccusing conscience you article with the Divine Being's to give you such protection only, which you merit, knowing that they can best judge of your deserts. Do you think (my Lords) he does not oft recollect and meditate upon these his own words, I have delivered a Sword into the hands of the Captain of my Guards, with a command he should draw it against me, if I act contrary to that duty, I owe the public; nor do I deprecate the anger of the Gods, or so much as wish for their connivance, if I incense their justice, or willingly provoke their vengeance: Nay I am heartily content my subjects, if by me oppressed, should make me no vows of allegiance, or when made, if by me injured, let them be absolved from the obligation of them.  
68 It is therefore (Caesar) by the Gods express consent that you are sheltered from all mischiefs, and securely guarded with health and peace. For when you petition the Gods should protect you no longer, than you Govern well, you are sure you Govern well, because they yet protect you. Hence we pass the day in mirth and profoundest quiet, which distracted other Princes with perpetual alarms of doubt and suspicion: While now racked with jealousies, then tortured in suspense, still fearing we should not long endure the galling yoke, they expected every minute to hear of mutinies and revolts; and if any wind or weather had detained those messengers that were in their road from distant Provinces, they dreaded what their conscience had assured them they deserved, and immediately concluded a Rebellion was begun. Nor did they suspect only some few designing men, but were constrained to be jealous of all alike: For when by an evil Prince every one of more worth than himself is feared as an encroaching Successor, there being none, but worthier, there can be likewise none, but such who are an object of his fear. But your security is fixed and stable, no delay of Couriers, no detainment of Paquets, can suspend or interrupt it. You know all are bound by oath to obey you, because you have bound yourself by oath to defend them. Nay there is none, but what is conscious that to pay his duty is to purchase his advantage. We love you indeed for your deserts, yet after all we love you not more for your sake, than for our own. For really there is a selfishness in our subjection, nor is there any one day wherein our prayers for your long life are not grounded upon interest, as much as upon Religion, or Loyalty. And indeed those Princes are a scandal to their dignity, who have any other ends of Government, than the welfare of that community they are set over. It is observable that no Princes pump and pry into the secret thoughts of their subjects, but only those, who are not beloved. Whereas would the good be as searching, and attentive in this respect as the bad, would you, Caesar, be as curious and inquisitive in this regard as your Predecessors, what joy, what comfort, what feeding satisfaction might you find in the recesses of every heart? What fine discourses of you might you hear among the Women and Children, even in places unfit for dissimulation or compliment, their Kitchings and Chimney corners? You would soon confess that they are more lavish of their good words in private, than they justly suppose your modesty would allow them in public. For though love and hatred be extremely distant, yet herein they conspire, that we express our love to good Princes most freely in those retirements, where we most securely vented our hatred of bad ones.  
69. Yet had you the open experience of our judgement and affections, as much as in your presence was possible to express, on that day wherein you so far cherished the hopes, and allayed the disappointments of the respective Candidates, that you let no one's joy give occasion of grief to another. Those, who were elect, returned in triumph, and those that missed came off with hopes, and a prospect of better success in their next attempts; so that many were to be Congratulated, yet none needed pity or comfort. You advised our young Gentlemen to seek out for preferment by a dependence on the favour of the Senate, learning them to hope for honours from the Prince by engaging the interest of his great Council. Wherein if any wanted a Precedent, you proposed yourself to his imitation: A hard example, Caesar, that which none of the Candidates, nor of future Princes neither, shall be ever able to follow! For what Candidate is more observant of the Senate for one day, than you for your whole life, and more especially at that very time, when you presided and gave judgement of the Candidates? Has any other motive but your respect to the Senate induced you to offer preferments to our Gentry as a reward of their deserts, nay to confer them before they were fully deserved? So that Nobility is no longer eclipsed, but illustrated by the Prince. The descendants from ancient families, the undegenerate issue of freeborn Ancestors Caesar does neither fear nor make afraid, but exalts them to early honours proportioned to the dignity of that race, they sprang from. If there be any branch, any remainders, of an ancient stock, he prunes and cultivates them to flourish, and grow up for the service of the Commonwealth. Great and good old names are retrieved from that oblivion, they lay buried in, and reinvested with honour and credit by that goodness of Caesar, which extends to the raising of new families, and to the preserving of old ones.  
70. One of the Candidates had been Questor of a Province, wherein one of the largest Cities had computed their revenues, and settled the receipt of them in an easy method; the whole contrivance being managed by his care and conduct. Of this you thought fit to acquaint the Senate, and to move that the merits of it might be considered, For under such a Prince, whose virtues exceed the greatness of his birth, why should they be in a worse condition, whose actions may ennoble their posterity, than those, whose Ancestors have ennobled them? O generous and worthy soul! May you ever thus encourage our Magistrates, and incite them to be qualified for their charge, not so much by punishments inflicted on the bad, as by rewards bestowed on the good. Our youth by your influence is inflamed, and takes a hot pursuit of those industrious courses, which it sees are authorised by your approbation. Nor can any be otherwise inclined, that knows there is nothing done abroad, but what you have a perfect account, an exact information, of. It is of much use and advantage (Caesar) for the Governors of Provinces to be assured, there is laid up for their prudence and integrity, the greatest reward, the countenance and favour of their Prince. Acute and vigorous dispositions, if not quite starved, have at least been extremely dashed and disheartened by these uneasy, yet reasonable thoughts, what motives have we to virtue or honesty? If we do never so well, our Prince shall have no information of it, or, if he have, will take no notice, no farther regard. This negligence or untowardness of Princes by granting impunity to the evil, and proposing no encouragements to the good, deterred not those from vice, nor incited these to ambition. But now if any happily acquit himself in the Government of his Province, he is sure to be adorned with such dignity, which shall seem acquired by his virtues. The peevish enclosures are removed, and to all is laid open an unbounded field to honour and glory, wherein all may attain their laudable designs, and when attained may safely thank themselves, and repute them the effect of their own industry. You have likewise for the future redeemed our Provinces from the fear of oppression, and the necessity of continual accusations. For if those, to whom the Provinces have paid their thanks and approbation, be hereupon countenanced and preferred by the Prince, this will have so good influence on the regulating of others, that there will be no need of complaints for the future. The Candidates will soon be sensible that nothing will so much promote their interest in the pursuit of a new office, as their industrious behaviour in a former. The good discharge of one employ is the easy procurement of another, and past honours bring on future. I would not have the Governor of a Province for a testimonial of his integrity produce the hands of his favourites, or the shuffling Affidavits of his creatures and dependants, but the decrees of Colonies, the judgement of Corporations: That so Cities, Countries and Nations may have some influence on our Elections, and have their suffrages in some measure occur and intermix with ours. And thus the most effectual way of petitioning for a Candidate will be an Address of thanks to him from that Province, which he has lately obliged by his good Government of it.  
71. What a comfort, what a pleasing joy was it, for the Senate to see that at your putting up, or nomination of every Candidate, you gave him a courteous salute stepping down from your Royal Seat, as if you already meant to Congratulate his Success! Shall I more admire your civility, or condemn the stifness of those, who have rendered this favour the greater by making it so rare and unaccustomed? While riveted and fast nailed as it were to their Chairs of State, they would but just hold forth their hands, and this too so slow and sparingly, as if a touch of that were a never to be deserved favour. Your good nature therefore presented us with an unusual sight, a Prince and a Candidate standing on even ground, and the fountain of honour not higher than those lesser streams, which slowed from it. This condescension of yours was by the whole Senate applauded with these pathetic acclamations, So much the more great, so much the more August. And he indeed, who is already Supreme, has this only method for a farther advance, to stoop and submit without being jealcus it will abate from his height. For there is nothing less impairs the just Grandeur of a Prince, than a meek humility. Beside your civilities seemed not more taking in themselves, than in your happy art of expressing them. Your eyes, your voice, your gesture were wholly employed to grace and set off your delivery, and yet as if you were not hereby at all diverted, you omitted no one circumstance of any other occasional complaisance. When the names of the Elect were to be approved, you were one of the approvers, while from the mouth of a Prince came the suffrage of a Senator. And we, who were formerly proud if the Prince would accept of our testimony, are now obliged with his. But while you, Caesar, (the Oracle of worth) pronounced the men to be deserving, you made them to be, what you so adjudged them. Nor did you approve only of their merits, but of the opinions of the Senate, who were as glad to have their judgement confirmed by yours, as the others could be to have their virtues ratifyed by your commendation.  
72. While you prayed that our Elections might have a happy event to us, to the Republic, and but lastly to yourself: Ought not the order of this form to be inverted, and by an easy transposal of the words should we not implore the Gods, that all you do, or shall do, may be for ever prosperous, first to you, then to us, and the Republic: Or (to contract our devotion) to you alone, for in you is wrapped up the happiness both of us and the Republic? There was a time (and that time too long) when the interests of Prince and People were divided, and the advantage of the one was a prejudice to the other. But now we share with you in the same fortune, our good luck or disasters run parallel with yours, nor can we be any more happy without you, than you by your own confession could be without us. And had you thought that your safety was independent from ours, you would not have closed up your Prayers with this petition, That the Gods would so answer your requests, as you continued to merit our affections. So sacred in your esteem is the love of your subjects, that you profess first to desire theirs, and not till afterward that of the Gods: Nay and are willing to be indulged by the Gods, only on condition you are first endeared to us. And really the unfortunate end of many Princes gives reason to believe, that those are seldom regarded by the Gods, who are not beloved by men. It was hard to Commemorate these Prayers with a suitable return of praise, yet we attempted and did our utmost toward it. What ardour of love, what sparkling joy, what flames of passion did we express in our rapturous acclamations! It was the resounding echo, Caesar, not of our affections, but of your virtues, of your deserts, which no flattery could ever invent, no terror could ever extort. Whom have we so feared thus to dissemble, whom have we so loved thus to pretend? You have had experience of the necessity imposed by slavery; when did you ever hear, or when yourself declare any such hearty professions, as to be compared with these? Fear indeed oft whets the invention, yet after all betrays an unwilling mind. Wit squeezed out by compulsion is of a far different strain from that which flows voluntary and unforced. The cheerful and the discontented have a style, at least a tone, peculiar to the humours they are of, and neither can possibly counterfeit without discovery. The miserable, have one dialect, the happy another, nay though the contents of their speech be the same, the circumstances of each are distinguishable from their voice and delivery.  
73. You yourself were a witness of our universal joy. We were so taken up with transport, that we had no leisure to mind our habit, no desire to be curious of our outward garb. Our houses cchoed with peals of shouts, nor could thickest walls exclude the piercing noise. To spread the taking news, every man was upon the wing, and flew from his own home, though in such a sort of ecstasy, that he was scarce sensible he did so. We did many things by choice, and many too by instinct, nay some by compulsion; for even joy in excess has a tyrannic power. Nor could your modesty impose any bounds to our exultation; but the more you stifled our zeal, the more it flamed: Yet not out of stubbornness, but necessity: For as it was in your power to give occasion to our joy, so it is beyond our own to set measures to it. You yourself approved the sincerity of our joys by sealing them with your own tears. We saw your dropping eyes, we saw your blushing looks, and espied as much of blood in your face, as there was of modesty in your heart. While this inflamed our zeal to pray, that you might always have the same cause to weep, the same motives to be out of countenance. To these benches (supposing they can answer) we'll put the question, whether ever they beheld the tears of a Prince? No, but a Senate in tears they have often seen. You have brought an inconvenience on future Princes, and laid a burden on the posterity of your subjects: For the people will expect their Princes should deserve the like acclamations, and Princes will take offence, if they do not hear them.  
74. I can say nothing more proper, nothing more concise, than what was by the whole Senate so oft repeated, O happy you! Which we said not in respect to the plenty of your fortune, but to the largeness of your soul. And indeed it is no small part of happiness to be thought by others worthy of it. On that day, among many other passages, which with prudence and gravity were delivered, this more especially deserves remark, Believe us, nay search and believe yourself. This we speak with a mighty confidence in ourselves, but a greater in you. One may haply beguile another, but none can easily delude himself: Let him but rip open his own thoughts, and ask his conscience, what he deserves, and he shall meet with neither flattery, nor concealment. This very method gains us credit with a good Prince, which made us but suspected by the bad: For they were so conscious of their failures, that whatever professions we made of Loyalty, they could never be affected with them, nor believe they were hearty, and sincere. Again, we prayed the Gods might so love you, as you loved us. Who would be so profane, if he were not assured that your kindness to the people is so great, that the favour of Heaven to you can ne'er exceed it? Farther we desired the God's, They would love us, as you did. Had we not therefore reason to bless ourselves with this exclamation, O happy we! For who indeed can on this side humanity be more happy than we, who have no need to pray that the Prince may love us, but that the Gods would do it so well as he does? Hence does this devoutly disposed City, which always paid a just deference to piety and religion, think that nothing can more advance her exalted bliss and welfare, than that the Originals would take pattern of their image, and the Gods be pleased to imitate Caesar.  
75. But why should I endeavour to enumerate all particulars? As if my speech could either contain, or my memory recollect, what you, my Lords, to rescue from all oblivion, have been pleased to insert in our public records, and preserve in more lasting inscriptions on brass. To be recommended to posterity in these monumental memoirs was a favour formerly allowed only to the Orations of Princes, while our harangues were buried under that roof, where they were delivered: Nor indeed did they deserve to survive, they being such, as neither Prince nor Senate could justly glory in. But these now of ours are so well regulated, that to expose them to the open World, and deliver them down to future ages, will be agreeable both to the honour and interest of the Republic. First, that the whole Universe may be witness of our Loyalty, then, that it may appear we presume to commend the good, and, when occasion serves shall as freely dare to reprove the bad, and that not only in their graves, but while life and reign do yet continue: Lastly, that we may by experiment evince, we would formerly have been as grateful, but that we were thus unfortunate, as never before to have the same subject and opportunity of so approving ourselves. But with what earnestness, what importunities were we forced to solicit you, before you would comply to let our affections, and your deserts be published? Though the transmitting them over to future ages would have this notable convenience, that Princes might hence learn how to distinguish between harangues unseigned and counterfeit, and be obliged to you for the discovery. They may spare the trouble of seeking out new roads to a good reputation, they need only not deviate from that, you have put them in: They need not study the cure of flattery, but take care only to prevent a relapse: They'll know what they ought to do, and will know as well what they must expect to hear. Beside those prayers, wherein the whole Senate has joined with me, what shall I pray more for the Senate itself, than that (your blessings, Caesar, implying her happiness) may the same joy always, overflow in your heart, which in tears was strained through your eyes? May you love that day, and yet be the occasion of one more joyful, may you deserve more and still hear more: For in our duty of thanks and praise we can only repeat the same words, unless you supply us with new matter successively to proceed upon.  
76. How honourable, how Roman-like was it for the Senate, complying with your exemplary patience, to sit three days without intermission or adjournment, while you behaved yourself not as a Prince, but as a Consul? Every one started what questions, he pleased; Any one might descent from another's judgement, or retract his own, and freely advise whatever he thought would conduce most to the interest of the public. All were in their turns consulted, the votes of all were cast up, and not the first, but the best resolves were sure to prevail. Whereas heretofore who durst speak, who dared so much as whisper, but those only, who were first asked their opinion? The rest dissatisfied within themselves, and swelling their undigested murmurs, were forced to stifle their dislike, and with a relenting heart and discomposed body let their silence pass for a consent. One alone by the dictate of the Prince proposed what all the rest were obliged to comply with: Though they all and especially the first proposer privately disallowed and condemned it: And nothing sure can be more displeasing than what's thus extorted against the will of the major part, and yet pretended to be by the consent of all. Some Emperor perhaps out of respect to the honourable assembly might curb and restrain himself within the Senate house, but no sooner out, than he reassumed the character of a Prince, and with contempt disclaimed his office of a Consul. But our Prince was so a Consul, as if he had no other title, and thought nothing below himself, that was not below the dignity of that place. He appeared in public without any thing of troublesome pomp, without a burdensome train: He stopped only to consult the Augurs, and take instructions from the Gods. None was disturbed, none was rudely thrust aside, there was so much freedom for the Passengers, so much civility in the Lictors, that a crowd of strangers would oft stop the Prince and Consul. In a word, his procession was every way so modest and inoffensive, that we seemed to have a primitive Consul revived under the disguise of an Emperor.  
77. He went often to the Forum, and as frequently to the public meetings for Election, where he sat Precedent as Consul, and took as much pleasure in declaring of the Elect, as he had before done in nomination of the Candidates. Those Candidates, who stood before his Curule Chair, as he himself had so lately done before the Consul's, and there took the same oath which not long before had been taken by the Prince, who knew the Ceremony of it to be so solemn, and the obligation so strong and effectual, that he would bind others with it as firmly, as he had freely engaged himself. The remainder of the day he spent in his Courts of Justice: And there what a devout esteem of equity and conscience? What a respect and reverence of the Laws! If any addressed themselves to him as a Prince, he corrected their mistake, by meekly answering he sat there as a Consul. The rights of other Magistrates, their privileges or authority were not by him encroached nor impaired, but often advanced. For he would remit many points from his own cognisance to be determined by the Praetors, to whom he was pleased to give the title of Colleagues, not because it sounded popular, but because he really so esteemed them; accounting that place so honourable that he thought a Praetor not unworthy to be the Colleague of a Prince. Farther, he was so constant and unwearied in his attendance on the Bench, that he seemed even fed with labour, and refreshed with pains. Who of us could have endured the same toil? Who undergone the same drudgery? Who would not be either unwilling or unable to serve out so laborious an employ? Though indeed it is but fitting, he should excel all other Consuls, who has himself the power of creating Consuls: For otherwise his strength would be disproportioned to his fortune, if he could bestow that office, which he could not manage. Nay when he makes Consuls, he instructs them in the duty of the place, and renders them sensible, that he understands the nature of what he gives, and expects, nay provides, that they should be as apprehensive of what it is they receive.  
78. From hence does the Senate more justly desire, and even with importunities little less than command, that you would accept the fourth Consulship. This was not a motion started in flattery, but the offer of a serious intention, and let your compliance satisfy that you believe us to be in earnest in a matter wherein the Senate can never beg, nor ever be relieved with a greater favour. For as other common mortals, so even Princes (though they write themselves Gods on Earth) must shortly resign a frail and borrowed life. It is therefore their duty to contrive and endeavour to serve the Republic, even beyond the Grave in bequeathing them such monuments of justice and moderation, which an able Consul has the best opportunities to erect. And since it is your intention to reduce and restore our liberty, what honour should you more affect, what title should you more often assume, than that of Consul, which was the first badge of your redemption from slavery? It has not less of Grandeur to be both Prince and Consul, than to be Prince alone. In your acceptance of this dignity you made some allowance to the modesty of your Colleagues, your Colleagues I may presume to term 'em, because you yourself imposed that name, and would have others call them by it: They would not have the confidence to appear themselves in a third Consulship, till they saw you labouring in a fourth: For it must needs have been too much for a subject, which a Prince should have thought enough. But you comply, Caesar, with our importunate desires, and are as charitable to our prayers, as the Gods are attentive to yours.  
79. Your third Consulship no doubt contented you, but it makes us the more dissatisfied; your complete discharge of that does but whet us on to be more impatient for your being farther engaged. We should have been more cold in our Address, if we had not already a proof of your deportment. You might have detained us from a past experience more tolerably, than you can disoblige us with a present repulse. How eagerly must we needs interrogate, Shall we see him again Consul whose abilities we are so well assured of? Shall he hear and return the same wont expressions of mutual content and joy? Shall he again dispense as much satisfaction, as he receives? Shall he manage that public Jubilee, which his deserts alone occasion? Shall he endeavour to restrain our affections, and yet, as formerly, not have power to do it? Such a conflict between the Loyalty of the Senate, and the modesty of the Prince must needs be glorious to both, which ever gains the victory or defeat. There will be joys I presume as yet untasted: For none can be so shallow as not to imagine his virtues will advance with his honour, and the oftener he is employed, the better will he still improve. Any other, if he had not quite enslaved himself to debauch and luxury, would at least have tempered his labours with ease and remission. But this, when he respites from the cares of his Consulship, applies himself to those of the Empire, and so divides his thoughts on the concernments of each, that his being a Prince does not interrupt his acquitment as a Consul, nor his being a Consul distract or impede his discharge as a Prince. We see him generous in indowing whole Provinces, and as free in relieving particular Garrisons. No difficulty in giving Audience, no delays of returning answers: All are easily admitted, all as quickly dismissed, nor are the Royal Gates any longer besieged with crowds of humble Petitioners, who must throng and tediously attend for entrance.  
80. Through the whole course of your judicial proceedings how gentle is your severity, and yet how uncheap your mercy! You sit not to enrich your own Exchequer, nor take you any other methods for your final resolves, than the impartial administration of justice. Those, who stand to plead before you, are not so solicitous of their own fortunes, as of your estimation; nor are they so much concerned for what you determine of their cause, as for what you conclude of their Morals. How much like a Prince, how much like a Consul is it to reconcile divided Cities, to compose a fluctuating people, to quell their tumultuous humours by reason more than power, to redress the injurious Decrees of other Judges, and by repeal to undo whatever was unjustly done! In short, like the noblest of the Planets to have an eye over all places, an influence on all things, and like a God to appear and assist wherever invoked! Such an almighty goodness is alone dispensed by that great disposer of the Universe, when he pleases to look down on the humble Earth, and make the actions of us mortals a part of his divine inspection: which is indeed a drudgery that you have now discharged him from; he may now confine his Providence within the extent of the heavens, since in you he has appointed a Vicegerent, who can suffice for the concerns of this inferior World: A Vicegerent, who exactly performs the pleasure of his great Master, and makes every succeeding day contribute to our benefit, and his own glory.  
81. Whenever you have dispatched the exigencies of public affairs, you make your very diversions but an exchange of labour. For what other recreation do you accustom yourself to, than toilsome ones of swift walking, of hard riding, of scouring the Parks and Forests, of rousing the timorous game from their Dens of refuge, of breaking through woods and thickets, and visiting the Deities of those abstruse abodes? This was of old the Education of our youth, this their employ, this their pleasure. In this method were our future Generals trained up, to contend in speed with the nimblest beast, in valour with the most courageous, and in strategeme with the most crafty. It was one sort of military exercise in peace to clear the Country from the eruptions of wild beasts, and to rescue the husbandman's long hopes from the damages of a ravenous waste and spoil. Nay this sport was affected by those Princes, who would not be at the pains to prosecute it, so they usurped that pleasure, they were too lazy, to attain, by having beasts in some contrived Enclosures let out, as if in open field dislodged, and then shot and wounded, as it by mighty art and wonderful dexterity. But our Prince with a scorn of such poor shams spends more of sweat in pursuing than in killing of them, and takes as much pleasure in finding them out, as in running them down. If he choose at other times to divert himself by water, he does not idly let his eyes float along with the streaming sails, but he manages an Oar, he sets hand to the Rudder, and contends with the stoutest Tarpolin to break a rising wave, to secure the tackle from a ruffling wind, and so with art and strength to cut through the toughest of resisting floods.  
82. How much different was the humour of that late 
* Domitian  Emperor, who dared not trust the smoothness of the Alban lakes, or the shallow silence of the Port of Baiae, that could not endure the least motion of an Oar, but trembled at every stroke they made! And therefore without disturbance of Sail or Oar, he was towed along by another Vessel, and so drawn like some sacrifice for religious expiation, which must be neither touched nor approached. A scandalous spectacle to see a Roman Emperor tugged along by another boat, as if a Captive dragged in triumph. Nor did more distant floods and foreign rivers scape this reproachful sight: Danube and the Rhine were made acquainted with it, who rejoiced to be thus witness of our shame. It being no more a scandal to our Empire that this goodly project should be displayed on the Roman Coasts, on the Roman Seas, than presented on the banks of her enemy, that enemy, whose custom it is to slide along these waters when they are froze into Ice, and to wade, sail over, or swim cross them in all milder seasons of the year. But to return, I should not commend your strength of body, or agility of limbs, if they were not set off with a stronger and more active soul, which the indulgence of fortune could never effeminate, nor the temptations of Royalty ever debauch into sloth and intemperance. So that whether the recreations of our Prince shall carry him to the Mountains, or call him to the Ocean, I shall ever much admire his body invigorated by exercise, and his joints compact by labour. Those Heroes, whom the Goddesses accepted of for husbands, were not more honoured by their divine Marriage, than by these nobler arts of Hunting and Navigation. Now when the sports and most divertive pastimes of our Prince are so severe, how much more painful must those pleasures be, which he takes in more serious concerns! Those pleasures of the mind, wherein every one betrays his gravity, reservedness, discretion, and other such commendable qualities. Who so dissolute, as not to be seemingly eager and intent on whatever employs their expense of time? Right down idleness exposes all our infirmities, which the being taken up with any sort of business might prudently conceal. Have not many Princes squandered away their spare hours in Gaming, Riot and Excess, while their remission from cares was only to be more intent on the worse drudgeries of Vice and Debauchery?  
83. Great fortunes are always attended with this inconvenience, that none of their actions lie hid, none undiscovered. The condition of Prince's promotes this unhappiness, and makes not only their Palaces to be ransacked, but even their bed chambers and very closerts to be rissd and exposed. But this, Caesar, turns to your advantage; for nothing can more illustrate your glory than to be throughly looked into. Those exploits are admirable which you act abroad, nor are those performances a whit less famous which you exert within your own walls. It is honourable that you preserve yourself from all infection of vice, it is more credit that you fortify others against the like contagion. Nay, by how much harder it is to reform others than to amend ourselves, so much the more commendable is it, that being yourself the best, you have made the goodness of others to equal your own. Many otherwise of unsullied repute have miserably tainted their reputation by a Wise either too unadvifedly taken, or too tamely endured. So that a domestic infamy has blotted those, who had been too illustrious abroad, and they might have been the greatest of Romans, if they had not been the unhappiest of husbands. But your Royal Consort is your glory and your ornament: Who more chaste! Who more pious! Were a grave and reverend High Priest to make choice of a Wife, would he not choose her or her equal, were it possible her equal could be found? Of all your Grandeur, how doth she claim a share in nothing but the content and comfort? How constantly does she love, how devourly does she respect, not your power, but your Person? You are both but one soul united: Your State does nothing impair your familiar affections, and an exalted happiness has made no worse impressions on you both, than a sense and experience how well you can digest it. How modest is she in her Apparel! How frugal in her train! How discreet and decent in her Garb! The honour of this may perhaps redound to her Royal Husband, who sets the pattern, gives the instructions, and leaves to her the alone glory of a dutiful compliance. When she sees you march with so little of pomp, so little of tumult, does she not herself pass with the less noise, the less solemnity? When she finds you so accustomed to walking, does she not imitate as far as the weakness of her Sex will permit? These courses would become her, should you yourself do otherwise: But where you lead the way, where you are so exemplary, how ought she to conform as a Wife for your honour, and as a Woman for her own!  
84. Your Royal Sister too, how doth she remember that she has you for her Brother? How does she copy after your integrity, your truth, your candour? So that if any compare her with your happy Consort, from the prudent deportment of them both, he will find reason to doubt, which is the best foundation for a virtuous life, to be well bred, which was the portion of the one; or to be nobly descended, which was the fortune of the other. Nothing is so apt to breed quarrels as emulation, especially in women, where it is oft begot by a nearness in alliance, fomented by equality, inflamed by envy, till it end at last in the most inveterate spite and hatred. From hence it ought to be esteemed the greater wonder, that two Ladies in the same Palace, of the same Quality, should have no feuds, no contention. They bear with each other, they never dispute the right of precedence, and while both passionately love you best, they think themselves unconcerned, which of them you shall please best to love. They have the same intentions, they take the same course of life: nay they are scarce distinguishable to be two different persons; for with one soul they imitate and closely follow your steps, and therefore they must needs have the same Morals, because both have exactly borrowed yours. Hence a well managed moderation, and hence a security against all change of fortune; for those can never be in danger of falling, whose humility always keeps them down. The Senate offered them the Title of August, but to this they earnestly pleaded an excuse, either because you first refused the appellation of Father of your Country, or because they conceived it more honour to be termed your Wife, your Sister, than to be styled August. Though what motives soever induced them to a denial, they ever deserve to be, and shall ever be, so esteemed, the more August, the more their modesty rejects that Title. For what can be more commendable in Woman, than to believe that true honour consists not in airy names, but in the solid judgement of the World, and so to raise themselves to dignifying epithets by the very act of refusing them?  
85. That good old comfort of the Primitive World, Friendship, was out-dated, and quite shuffled off the Stage, to make room for flattery, compliment, and, what's worse than avowed hatred, a pretence of love. Especially in the Courts of Princes it was so unfashionable, that the very name was a word of reproach. For indeed what friendship could possibly be contracted between Lords on the one hand, and slaves on the other? This blessing, Sir, have you bestowed. You have friends, because you are one: And indeed it is this way of bribing that can alone procure them. For love cannot like other duties be imposed on subjects; there is no one passion more free, more voluntary, more impatient of the curb, or more resenting of ingratitude, if it meet not with a like return. A Prince may perhaps be unjustly hated, nay even hated by those whom he does not hate: But beloved he can never be, unless by those he loves. That you therefore love your subjects, is proved from your being beloved by them: And what is the greatest honour, the whole glory of both must be confessed your own, while being Superior to all, you stoop to be equal and familiar with the lowest, and from an Emperor humble yourself into a friend, though indeed you are then most of an Emperor, when as a Friend you Reign in the hearts of men. Nor is your prudence less than your goodness herein concerned; for since the fortune of Princes may in some exigencies stand in need of the friendship of many, it is their policy to provide themselves many friends. May a belief of this ever attend you, may you keep as constant to this virtue, as to all your other: And may you always rest assured that hatred or ill will in a Prince is one of the poorest mean spirited humours, that possibly he can be guilty of. To be beloved is the sweetest of humane comforts, nor is it less satisfaction to a generous soul to love: Both which you are so blest with, that you love most passionately, and are yet more passionately beloved; first, because for many to love one is easier, than for one to love many, and then you have such a faculty at obliging, that whomever you entertain a kindness for, he must be very ungrateful, if he make not a more ample return.  
86. It is worthy our pains to relate what penance you imposed on yourself, that you might deny nothing to your friend. You parted with a most 
* Licinius Sura, Captain of the Guards.  Excellent man, one you loved and prized to the just value of his merits: You parted with him as it were grudgingly and against your will, as if you would by persuasion, though not by force, have detained him. You made a trial by absence how much you should want him, and though to be separate was the most averse to your inclination, you yield because it was his request. An instance of good nature this beyond a precedent, that a Prince and his subject friend should have contrary desires, and yet the prince comply, the friend prevail. O generous selfdenial worthy an Eternal Record, to choose a Captain of the Guards not out of those, who thrust themselves on the place, but out of them, who declined it: And then again when tired with noise and hurry, to restore the same person to those retirements, he was called from: And when you yourself lie under an uneasy pressure from the encumbrance of an Empire, not to envy another the enjoyment of quiet and repose. We are now made sensible (Caesar) how much we are indebted for your own toilsome and laborious Station, since you granted this weary Petitioner a Writ of ease, as the greatest favour he could ask, or you bestow. What a trouble and discomposure were you in, when you brought him on his way? For you would attend him to the Sea side, and there at his going aboard embrace and take your last farewell. Caesar here stands upon the envious shore, and wishes his parting friend a happy voyage, and (if he himself so please) a quick return. Nor does he leave him so, but looks as long as distance will allow, and then follows after with Prayers, Sighs and Tears. I shall say nothing of your presents and rewards for his past service. For what bounty can equal this single kindness of permission and discharge, wherein you have so well deserved of him, that he ought to condemn himself as too blunt, too positive, in resolving a departure, and doubtless he began to repent, and considered whether he should not tack about and return: Nay he had certainly done it, if he had not supposed it as much happiness to be Loyal in distant thought and wish, as in a nearer Society and converse. He gained much honour by the discharge of that preferment, and a much greater by the resignation of it; to which when you complied, you show, that your service is no prison, nor shall any man be confined longer, than he himself please.  
87. This was generous and agreeable to the character of a public parent, to enforce nothing, but always to remember, that no office can be so considerable, but that the person endowed with it may possibly prefer a disengaged freedom. You are worthy (Caesar) to promote such to dignities as whose modesty will soon after resign them: And when they make it their petition to be excused, may you, though with reluctance, oblige them. May you not think yourself abandoned by those, who seem fond to retire; and for a supply of able Ministers may you still find those you can invite from, as well as those you shall remand to, a privacy and solitude. You therefore who are the Princes more especial favourites, whose friendship and familiarity he more designedly courts, improve that good opinion he is pleased to conceive of you, this aught to be your Province, this your duty. Neither envy nor be jealous that you are possibly less regarded than some others; for when by his more signal affecting of particular persons he has given proof that he can love intensely, he is to be excused if he love some in a more remiss degree. However be assured that in your Loyalty toward him, there can be no mean observed, since you are not to prescribe, but only follow in his example the laws and measures of your love. This man would be caressed when present, that esteemed when absent, both shall have their will; none by residence shall grow cheap, none by distance shall be forgot. Every one in all circumstances preserves that respect he merits, and our Prince can sooner let his eyes lose the resemblance, than his heart forfeit the memory, of his absent friend.  
88 Many Princes, who have been Lords of their subjects, have been yet slaves to their own servants: Their pleasure was a command, their advice a law, through their eyes passed all representments, to their ears came all petitions, and by their llands were dispensed all places of preferment. Whereas you indeed are courteous and obliging to your servants, yet still keep them at so due a distance, that it seems a competent reward for their industry, if they be but by your judgement approved honest and faithful. And indeed nothing is more an argument of a weak Prince, than powerful servants. First therefore you retain none, but such, who have best deserved by their Loyalty to your sacred self, or first adherence to your Royal Father. And these, when admitted to your service, you so tightly frame and mould that they learn to take measures of their fortune not from your condition of Supremacy, but from their own of subjection: While we pay them the much greater respect, because their modesty does less demand it. Was it not therefore upon just motives that the Senate and people of Rome conferred on you the surname of Best? True, this Title has been before assumed, but never till now deserved. For might the merits of any Prince have laidany tolerable claim thereto, it had certainly been by public consent assigned, and not by a selfish ambition usurped. Had it been more proper to have styled you Happy? No, that had been a compliment to your fortune, not a Character of your virtues. Or had it been better to have entitled you Great? No, this had been an Epithet of envy, more than of glory. An Excellent Prince adopted you into his own name, and the Senate has superadded the name of Best, which is as justly your due, as that you derive from birthright: It being no more significant nor distinguishing to call you Trajan, than to call you Best. Thus of old were the Pisos surnamed frugal, the Laeliis, wise, and the Metelli pious: Which several appellations are all comprised in this one of yours; for he cannot properly be entitled Best, who excels not all others in every of their respective virtues. Deservedly therefore, after many other Titles, was this annexed, as of all the greatest. It is much less to be Emperor, to be Caesar, to be Augustus, than to be of all Emperors, of all Caesars, of all Augustus s the Best. Hence is the Supreme Parent of the World adored first by the attribute of Best, and not till secondly by that of Greatest. The more divine your glory, who are equally both the Best by far, and by far the Greatest. You have gained a name that never can descend, or be transferred to another: In a good Prince it will seem borrowed, and in a bad it must appear usurped. Nay should each of your Successors assume it, it would after all be esteemed peculiarly yours. For as the rehearsal of Augustus reminds us of that person it was first conferr'd on, so a repetition of this name of Best shall always prompt posterity to reflect on you, and whenever after they are compelled to flatter others with this Title, so oft shall they recollect, who first deserved it.  
89. What joys, Divine Nerva, are you now crowned with, that you see the event so well answer your hopes, that he proves to be the Best whom you elected under a prospect of his being so! What a comfort and contentment is it, that compared with this your Son you yourself are infinitely excelled! Nor indeed could any thing argue a soul more untainted with spite and envy, than that being yourself so Excellent, you were not afraid of adopting one whose brighter eminence should in some measure shadow and obscure your yielding lustre. And you, happy Trajan, his natural Father (who if not promoted to the honour of a God, are at least advanced to the dignity of a Hero) what a pleasure must it needs reflect to see him who, during your stay on Earth, was but a common Soldier, at best but a Tribune, now since your remove so great a General, so great a Prince! You seem to engage in an amicable contention with his adoptive Father, whether were more glorious to have elected, or to have begot, so illustrious a Son. Both of you do indeed equally (that is infinitely) deserve of the Commonwealth, to which you are the occasion of so rich a blessing, who though he could bestow but the credit of a triumph on the one, and the glory of deifying on the other, yet are you both adorned by all his honours, no less effectually than if you yourselves had merited them.  
90. I know (my Lords) that as other Romans, so more especially the Consuls ought so to express their joys, as to seem more affected with the benefits conferr'd on the public, than with any interest resulting to themselves. For as it is more frequent, and indeed more just, to have ill Princes hated for common injuries, than for any private damage; so ought the good to be more respected and beloved for their influence on the protection of mankind, than for any favours reached out to particular persons. But whereas it has been authorised by custom that Consuls, after a presentment of the public thanks, should in their own names return some acknowledgement of their private obligations; give me leave to discharge this part of my duty not with more respect to myself, than to Cornutus Tertullus, my worthy Colleague. For why should I not address my thanks for him, in whose advance and interest I myself am equally concerned. Especially since our Severeign has made us joint Partners in that honour, to which had he promoted but any one of us, our affections were so united, our friendship so inviolate, it had indifferently obliged us both. That tyrannic enemy of good men by the Sequestration and Murder of our best friends had made us alike sufferers, while we still dreaded that Thunder, which often fell so near us. The same belov'd acquaintance which we had great comfort of while enjoyed, the same did we the more lament, when snatched from us: And as we have now the like refreshments of hope and joy, so had we then always one and the same occasion of grief and fear. The Divine Nerva was pleased to confer this reward on our past sufferings, that he would advance us to be Prefects of the Treasury, however less deserving, for an instance of the happy change of times, wherein they were now honourably employed, who so lately wished for no more than a safe retreat.  
91. We had not been full two years in this great and laborious office, when you Sir, (the best of Princes, the greatest of Commanders) offered us the Consulship, making that most eminent of honours the more acceptable by our not being imposed a tedious waiting for it. So much do you differ from those Princes, who conceived that a difficulty of obtaining set a value on their favours; and that therefore preferments were always the more welcome, if the persons at last obliged with them had been first dismissed with excuses, and baited with delays, which were no less than a seeming repulse, so long, till their expectation was angered, and their hopes affronted. Our modesty forbids to recite what a Character you were pleased to give of us, how in our integrity and love to our Country you compared us with the best of Primitive Consuls: Whether deservedly or no we dare not determine; for as it would be a scurvy compliment flatly to deny what you ventured to affirm, so it would be an unbecoming confidence to own or assume what your good nature pronounced, but our merit no-way required. Though indeed you are worthy to create such Consuls, who may rise up to that Character, and make the praises no longer a kind Hyperbole. Pardon us, Dread Sir, if among all your favours, we esteem this the most grateful, that you have again made us Colleagues. Our engaged affections, our agreeable humours, our united interest could have been concerned in no greater blessing. And indeed our natural dispositions are so turned alike, that our friendship is more owning to our temper, than to our virtues, and we are born of such a sympathising judgement that either of us can no sooner descent from his Colleague, than from himself. They are not therefore slight and single joys, which our preferment gives us since each has a double share and enjoys as much his friends honour, as his own. They, who are Successively Consuls, have that dignity twice, but than it is at several times: Whereas we are twice Consuls in the same year, once for ourselves and once for each other.  
92. How remarkable was it that while we were Prefects of the Treasury you gave us the Consulship before you appointed our Successors? One dignity was endowed with another, and our honour was not barely continued, but even doubled. And as if it had been too mean a favour at the close of one office to have removed us to another, your bounty prevented that occasion, and heaped on us a new one before the former expired. So great was the confidence you reposed in our integrity, that you resolved it most convenient, after our acquitment in so public a Station, not to strip us of all employ, nor to reduce us to private men. Farther, you were pleased to assign us Consuls for part of the same year, wherein you yourself had begun the office. The Annals shall therefore record our names in the same roll with yours, and the remainder of the year shall bear date from us, as the beginning did from you. To do us the greater honour you were pleased to sit precedent at our Election, and to perform those Ceremonies, which custom at that time has made requisite. We were made Consuls by your judgement, and pronounced so by your voice: That you, who voted for us in the Court, might as well afterward declare us in the field. But what a more eminent act of grace was it, that you resigned us the Consulship in that very month which was made glorious by your thrice happy birth! That we might have the honour to sign that Edict, and give order for those shows, which were to solemnize that memorable 
* 18th of ●eptemb. remarkable for ●he death of ●omitian, the accession of Nerva, and ●he birth of Trajan.  day which took from us the worst of Princes, gave us the best, and brought forth a better than the best. We shall amidst this Jubilee ride triumphant in our Consular Chariot, and surrounded with those shouts and acclamations, that shall be echoed at your appearance, we shall be even deafened with the volleys of noise, and distracted all around, not be able to determine from which side the louder peals alarm.  
93. But above all it exacts the greatest acknowledgement, that you will allow us a free and unstinted exercise of that authority, you have committed to us. No threats, no terror from the Prince does either break our courage, or pervert our resolutions. Nothing shall be spoken against our wills, nothing decreed against our judgements. The just respect to persons so entrusted is kept sacred, and still likely to be inviolate; nor are we debarred the liberty of securing our rights, if Majesty itself should attempt to encroach them. And therefore if the Consulship under our discharge lose any thing of privilege, it is the fault of us, not of the times. For as to the Prince, Consuls may be such as they were, while Supreme Governors, before the reduction of Monarchy. What answerable return of thanks can we make for all these favours, but only to remember that we are Consuls, and Consuls of your creation! Let us therefore so debate, so enact as our Character requires. Let us so behave ourselves, as if subjection to such a Prince were the most perfect state of liberty. Let us divide neither our Counsels nor endeavours. Let us think ourselves involved in the same concern, engaged to the same duties, and let us purchase the same eminence in care and industry, which we justly claim in dignity and respect.  
94. To shut up my discourse, I humbly entreat those Guardians and Supervisers of our Empire, the Gods, and more especially I beg of you Supreme Jove, that you would confirm those blessings, you have bestowed, and make your favours the more endearing by a long and long continuance of them. You heard our imprecations against the worst of Tyrants, hear as readily our prayers for the best of Princes. We do not weary nor persecute you with devotion, we pray not severally for peace, for concord, for safety, for wealth, or honour, but all these are summed up in that single petition, which craves the preservation of our Prince. Nor do we herein implore, what you are unaccustomed to bestow. For you have sheltered him under your protection ever since that time you snatched him from the talons of a griping Vulture. It was not without your providence that amidst those storms, wherein all that was high, was rudely shocked and battered, he who stood most exalted, escaped all blast and tempest. He was unobserved by the worst of Princes, who could not be passed over by the best. You gave us a proof of your judgement of him, when you entitled him (in his march toward the Army) to your own name, your own honour. You, speaking by your Representative the Emperor, did adopt to him a Son, to us a Parent, and to yourself a Pontifex Maximus. Wherefore with the more full assurance of being heard, I humbly pray in that form, which he himself prescribed, if he Govern well the Republic, and consult the good of all; first, that you would prolong his life, and deliver him down as one continued blessing to our children's children: Then that you would give him a late Successor of his own loins, who should be as happy by birth, as he himself was by adoption, or if your providence deny this, be you of Counsel in his choice, and direct him to such a one, who may deserve to be adopted in the Capitoline Temple.  
95. How much I am indebted to your Lordships is Chronicled in our public records. You have given me a credential testimony of my peaceableness in the Tribuneship, modesty in the Praetorship, and constancy in that Province, you imposed me, to plead in the defence of our Allies. Farther, you approved my designation to the Consulship with so many joyful expressions, that it is made my duty to endeavour I may so husband and improve your favours, that they shall not seem to be ill bestowed. For certain whether a person deserves an honour, can never be so safely judged, as after he has attained it. Do you but countenance my attempts, and believe that, if I were ever advanced by that dissembling Tyrant before he betrayed his hatred to the good, if after he owned it, I declined his service; if when I saw the most compendious road to preferments was by ill arts, I chose the honester, though the farther wayabout: If in bad times I were numbered among the criminals and condemned, if in good among the innocent and secure: Finally if I as much love the best of Princes, as I were hated by the worst: Then shall I ever serve your Lordships, not as one who is Consul, nor as a person that has been so, but as him. who is always a submissive Candidate for that office.  
THE END