THE English Orator OR Rhetorical Descants By way of DECLAMATION Upon some notable THEMES BOTH Historical and Philosophical.  
In Two Parts.  
LONDON, Printed for Obadiah Blagrave at the Sign of the Bear in St. Paul's Church yard, 1680.   

To the Right Worshipful Sir Francis Leigh Knight, of Wickham in Kent.  
Honoured Sir,  
THe first Prospect of your Person, methoughts, presented me with such a Landscape of Candour and Ingenuity, of such sweetness of Disposition and native Goodness, as that I presently began not only to admire the Sc●●e of your Accomplishments, but passionately to be ravished with the Love of them. The secret charms of I know not what Excellency (Ethics herself can't give it a name) that runs through and adorns the whole frame and course of your Life and Being, did so captivate and affect me, as that I wished I might be so happy as to enjoy the Mercy of your Worthy Acquaintance; and to live under the influence of so much Virtue, I wished I might be blest with an opportunity of expressing the Religion of that Homage and Service, which I own to you; and of presenting you with somewhat as a Pledge and Emblem of the profoundest Esteem, and most devout Affection I bear towards you: And indeed Providence hath been so propitious as to answer my desires, in occasionally fixing me sometimes near you, and in placing me within the Verge of that Paradise, which your Presence Consecrates where ever it is; so that I have often been ennobled, nay almost deified in the Elysium of your Company, have become learned by your Converse, have grown Prudent by your Example, have been maintained at your Table, have been feasted with Civilities both from your Person and Fortune, and have enjoyed the Favours of all your circumstances and capacities; For which I return you an Eternity of Thanks. Neither am I unsuccesseful in my second Prayers, Fortune having put into mine hands an opportunity, whereby I am capacitated to put somewhat into yours; I mean this inconsiderable trifle, which I do not Dedicate as a Present to requite you, but rather as a Toy to play withal, and to divert you. I hope you will pardon the Solecism, and Impropriety of the Gift, for I must confess I am sensible of mine Error in Prefacing with so stately a Frontispeice so mean an Edifice; I mean in prefixing your name to so poor a Pamphlet, your more curious Ingenuity, large Capacity, and universal Accomplishments in more solid Learning, I know deserve a treatment of the Quintensence and Elixirs of choicer Muses: I am not ignorant, that knotty Maxims of Policy, subtleties of Government, and Intrigues of State; a mystery in Divinity, and sublimer Speculations are more suitable Entertainments to the Acuteness of your Parts, the Swiftness of your Apprehension and Penetration of your Judgement; But when I consider that you have advanced so far in all Are and Science, as that the utmost of my Studies can't contribute one thought to further your Progress. I say, seeing I cannot inform you, hubmly crave leave with these Toys to recreate you. They were the Spawn and Issue of some spare hours, and are fit only for the Entertainment of idle time; 'tis not handsome nor modish for me to commend them; only thus much I think I may safely say, if you are inclined to sleep, their lulling Quality will be Poppy to your temples, and may procure a nod as soon perhaps, as the greatest Narcotick, which if it does effect, it will do you a kindness, in removing you from the noise of a tumultuous world, and in relieving you with the ease and softness of a silent slumber. I now withdraw from your presence to prevent the creation of a further trouble. All that I desire, is a Candid acceptance of what is here tendered; which if you shall graciously receive as a mere testimony of my grateful respects for all Favours, without any further design on your Worth and Goodness, I am at the height of mine Ambition, and have obtained the end of my present Addresses. I am  
Honoured Sir Your most Humbly Devoted Servant William Richards. Helmdon.   

THE Preface TO THE READER.  
I Present thee (most Courteous Reader!) with a Manual of Thoughts on Miscellaneous Subjects. They were hatched in the retirements of a Country Cell, and now fly abroad into the world, not so much to boast the paint of their Plumes and Elegancy of their dress, as the newness of their garb and habit, wherein they appear; there being nothing extant of this Nature in English, we being wholly destitute of Declamations in our Language. I must confess there can be no great want, or thirst of Oratory, as long as Quintilian and Seneca among the Ancients; Putean, Ferrarius, Gardiner and others of a later date, have obliged the world with such Eloquent Streams; But yet their Rhetoric flowing in a Latin Channel, all are not capable of drinking in their Current. But this Tractate is calculated for Readers of a lower rank, and yet affords brisk Entertainment for those of an higher. 'Tis written in a modern Style, and is exactly composed after the same model as usually harangues of this nature are now adays. The first Part are flourishes on certain Passages, which occur in History; some of which Fancy hath adorned with her Conceits on both sides, others on one side, she hath left untouched and naked: The latter are Meditations on several Questions in Ethics, Politics and Natural Philosophy, as I occasionally popped upon them, and they have pleased my Genius. If what I have garnished them with, please your , the Kind Acceptance of this first dish, will encourage me to treat you with a second Course.  
W. R.   

THE English Orator.  


DECLAM. I. A certain Damsel reduced to want, sells her Hair to relieve her in her Poverty.  
IF no reproach can fully the brightness, nor eclipse the glory of shining Virtue; if the calumny that persecutes a famous Exploit, add to the Praise of him that achieved it, Then our Virgin amongst the distracting cares of pinching Poverty, congratulates the censure of that action, by which she showed herself more than Woman. 'Twould have made the Modesty of a Maid to Blush, so publicly to be exposed to the view of the world, but that she is inflamed with that sacred Ardour, which is kindled in the Breast of pious Matrons, when concerned and zealous for the injured Fame of their traduced Innocence.  
On her own accord she sues for Judgement, not as if conscious to herself, she did at all fear, lest silence should speak her guilty; But that she might publicly wipe off all Aspersions, and might comfortably enjoy her Accusation: she had no need of an Advocate to defend the sale of her comely tresses, her hard Fortune was plea sufficient, and she is abundantly protected by her chaste Integrity.  
This wretched Damsel in this sad condition could neither hope for Hatred, nor expect Envy; she supposed her miseries a charm against the malignity of the severest Fortune, and her obscurity a sanctuary against any harm; and therefore doth at once both wonder, and grieve too, that she is summoned to a Tribunal; as if she were encircled with a Crown of Happiness, or were an object worthy of Spleen and Malice. This poor Girl implores your pity, both on her slender Estate and her Baldness too; which was not caused by slothful age, or feeble lust, but was inflicted upon her by ravenous hunger and the merciless tyranny of cruel destiny, she was distressed in her infancy, and felt the rigour of Fortune in her very cradle; where she seemed at once with the same cry both to deprecate her nakedness and lament it too.  
Her miseries increased as she grew in years; and Poverty (as it were) was equally adult with her person too. What should this Virgin do so miserably involved in so great Evils? Her extremity render her labour and industry vain and fruitless; and such a Lent of fasting had withered the Spring of her blooming youth into the Autumnal decays of wrinkled age. After she had a long time striven, and all in vain, with these her stubborn and obstinate troubles. At length she finds out some little redress for all her grievance, and an innocent remedy for her urgent necessity; she cuts off her locks to supply her wants. And indeed in so pressing a calamity, she was glad to find any thing that was vendible, any thing that could refresh the languors, and strengthen the weakness of her feeble limbs, and by a short truce prevent the invasion of approaching death. If it be lawful with any price to bribe off destruction, and with all arts imaginable to purchase the comforts of present life, Then, why is this Damsel censured for a little deferring her fatal blow, and for redeeming with spoils of her own body the delights and Pleasures of a few days. Although loss of Hair is an unhandsome defect in the female Sex, yet where is the woman, that studies her dress, or regards gallantry amidst the dubious concerns of an uncertain life, and the expected horrors of almost present death? Affected neatness and curiosity of attire, is quite neglected, when the pale fiend advanceth forward, in a frightful garb of his own terrors darting himself in a glance or look. Want of Hair is far more tolerable than want of Bread; and Baldness to be preferred before Hunger, and the continual languors of a starved carcase. 'Tis far more pleasant to have no Hair than to die by degrees, and to perish insensibly by piece-meal, and tediously to departed, and (as it were) after repeated Funerals to breathe her last. Though a naked head in a wench is scandalous, yet why should disgraces vex her? 'Tis Revenge enough to see her pale, and to hear the accents of her mournful groans.  
Suffer therefore this unhappy Virgin to enjoy the benefit of her baldness, and let her live in her own punishment. See! The woods are deprived of their leaves and ornaments, and the Dryads suffer (as it were) an annual baldness for the better increase of their inward vigour, and that under the pretence and show of age, they may resume and flourish in a fresher verdure, and boast the elegance and flower of their retrieved youth; she cares not for Deformity, Infamy, nor her Religion neither, so long as hunger (like an Enemy) forages within making men Cannibals to themselves, and (O horrible!) devouring the prey of their own members. When Famine had added terror to her eyes, and you might have contemplated her stiff joints, and bloodless cheeks, you would have stood amazed at the sight of this Ghost of a carcase; especially to have seen, amidst the ugly shapes, and figures of death, the dischevelled wantonness of her lose tresses, nourished by the horror and dread of Fate, and produced by squalid Contagion and Putrefaction.  
We have here an excellent Example of rare Prudence, and an admirable pattern of singular Virtue. Behold! an unhappy Lass amids the Inconveniences of a Cottage, and other hardships of an adverse Fortune despiseth the blandishments, and flatteries of the world; nay more, contemns that, which either Hunger or Want ought to have desired, she suffered that which the women of Aquileia had done before her, who amidst the ravenings of War, and Famine, pol'd their heads, not because grief or despair, but danger commands them to make halry bowstrings.  
Our poor Girl hath suffered war, hath endured famine, yet hath returned with equal Victory: If therefore you will still go on to condemn her baldness, why do you not condemn her chastity too? and censure the Emblem of the greatest Modesty? she could not behold her deformity with a greater dislike than her attempted Virginity; and a solicitation to dishonesty was in her Judgement capital. She shaves her head, sells her hair, lest her poverty should tempt her to become a prostitute; and so by the damage of her beauty prevents her infamy; Pardon therefore the fall and loss of those locks, which if kept any longer, had proved fatal to her Virtue! Pardon that she sold them, which was not so much to prolong her life, as before a Tribubunal to give the reason of that her Action. She humbly implores you, to let her enjoy the innocence of her calamity, and also the comforts of Poverty, Baldness, and Chastity.   

DECLAM. II. Against the Girl that cut off her Hair to relieve her want.  
I Pray do not think that I being a young man do willingly accuse this fair Maid, who besides is young and tender, and had she not lost her Hair is a beauty too. There lies a necessity upon me of undertaking this ungrateful Province. Behold this wretched young wench every way surrounded with the greatest extremity! 'Tis true indeed, she is sufficiently embellished with the endowments of nature, but poorly furnished (God wots) with the gifts of Fortune; being far better adorned with beauty, than enriched with an Estate; she hath a chest indeed, but small and empty. But though Fortune heaps no gold in her coffer, yet Nature hath shed it upon her Hair. But see! at length this blind Goddess sends her gifts, but I fear on hooks, and so baits the Damsel with her deceitful presents. The silly Girl receives with one hand the boons of Fortune, and bestows with the other the goods of Nature; she takes the money, and gives her hair.  
But (alas!) of how little value are these dangling tresses, those superfluous threads of her troubled head, if compared with the omnipotence of sacred gold? 'Twas this opinion that deceived the Virgin into such deformity, which she had rather richly endure with money, than poorly without it to enjoy her beauty entire: and her charms inviolable; as if one and the same could not be fair and needy; and as if the features of a woman were not a richer dowry, than Attalick wealth. Beauty doth that in the softer sex, which valour doth in the stronger; and as this doth ennoble the base, and advance them to a pitch of dignity and honour, so that doth raise the mean, and recommend them to the embraces of Kings and Princes. How vile therefore and what a nothing is a little modicum, a parcel of money, if standing in competition with the Divinity of beauty! This unfortunate Lass hath made such a swop as Glaucus in Homer, who changed away his gold foolishly for brass, and may deservedly be styled the very Proverb of stupidity.  
But consider, (I pray) urgent necessity did press upon her: The reward of her hands could hardly defend her from the injuries of cold and hunger; labour and diligence was all her possession, and her whole revenue. But who diminisheth that true wealth far to be preferred above Persian riches? But what hurt is there in a shaved crown, though there is no money given for the filth and excrements of a nasty head? We confess our hair to be nothing else but the scurff and dregs of a cribrous head, stretched and extended into slender threads; but the more vile the materials, the more admirable and exquisite the skill and workmanship. The excellency of these above other locks doth evidently appear from the very desires of him that buys them, which were greedy and pecuniary. Behold! how importunate his petitions! How vehement his wishes! and how eagerly doth he long for the possession of them? For this very reason (O besieged Virgin!) because he is so instant, deny his request; for if fictitious cruck's add such a grace to other heads what glories and prettinesses must these scatter upon her neck, being never transplanted from their native soil, nor ever deprived of their natural elegance.  
On this thy crime do thou thyself pass sentence (O most indiscreet Virgin!) Thou canst not be acquitted by thyself thy Judge. The richer metal of thy golden hair thou hast changed, and trucked for viler silver, and ha● delivered that to the buyer, which might have been a credit and an ornament to the seller— Beware therefore for the future of thine own glass; For that which even now did please thee with the lovely reflection of thy flattered Image now affright's thee with the mormo's, and represented horrors of thine ugly shapes: neither is there any reason why thou shouldst expect a milder doom from our tribunal, whose candour, smiles, and expanded brow, your filthy baldness hath terrified and converted into contracted frowns.   

DECLAM. III. Tiberius did well, in forbidding the Kindred of those that were Condemned to Lament and Mourn.  
IF the sacredness of Laws ought to be kept and preserved inviolable; and if a domestic conspirator is more dangerous than a foreign invader, then wicked sighs breathed out for criminals, are to be accused as guilty, and mourning weeds presage as much the fate of the mourner, as the death of him for whom he grieves. Certainly the Emperor did well consult the good of his Citizens who forbade and condemned both the rebellion, and impiety of those groans and tears that were both uttered and shed at a wicked funeral. That conspiracy ought to be buried in the deepest silence, which, with a clamorous grief would recall the soul of an expiring Tyrant, repair the decays of wasted strength, and with a new life restore fresh and more vigorous treacheries. It had been noble and generous at the death of a Captain, though an enemy, to perform such funeral rites; which his soldiers would have celebrated with solemn pomp. Thus in vain the Hero of old breathed his soul into his gasping companion, in vain he embraced him, closed his eyes, and in vain he imbibed his last breath: But when a villain dies, let his neighbour fear, nay let his unhappy issue too, to suck and receive his last spirit, lest the wretch should bequeath in the legacy of a sob his crimes and should pant slaughter, and so after death live in his kindred still a murderer; as mad dogs by biting and hags by kissing instill their poisons, and leave a deadly dart on their friends lips. Hence often it is that an innocent son possessing the soul of his damned father, inherits his vices and his punishments too.  
The Deities would have us dumb and silent who with secret darts do scatter death, forbidding all noise, but their own thunder, and seeing no body that's guilty dies lamented by his neighbour, we must obey Fate; Thus one being smitten, the prudent herd consulting its safety, denies a refuge to the wounded Deer, and willingly complies with the expert Archer to prevent the slaughter of more sacrifices.  
Grief trickling from Parents in such liberal showers, seems to suspect the integrity of the Judge, and to accuse the magistrate of injustice too, whilst he is thought to be corrupt, and his power criminal. And indeed, well may such tears affright, and terrify, which do patronise wickedness, and its Authors too. Though they distil silently, and in their first drops discover only but feeble angers, but at length, when floods shall meet with floods, and Blasts of sighs are opposed by blasts, than the deluge of sorrow swells into complaints, and boils, and ferments into impotent revenge. The aspect of these mourners grow fierce and cruel, who execute with their looks, and murder the assertors of their own right. After such mild severity, and so calm a storm, let it shame the Citizens to weep more! let them blush to grieve for dying treachery, and let not the outcry of a conclamation, but more pleasant noises attend the hearse! If a doleful mother always pregnant with a vicious brood, should still deplore her nefarious offspring, in vain are prisons, and tribunals; where the Hypocrisy of grief, and counterfeit lamentations corrupt the fidelity and integrity both of Judge and witness; and so the guilty enjoy their suffrages, and so numerous Patrons of vice do expiate the crime.  
If guilt be in so great esteem, let the Guard be armed from a full prison, and let the weeping City reduced and profligated by a rebellious Citizen, feel those treacheries, of which the lamented villains were the Authors! and let it deplore the loss of its robust vigour so plainly enfeebled by their strength; Thus the swift Hart is grieved at his horns, when their unprofitable weight does hinder flight, and when the useless burden of his branching head shall expose him as a prey to the cruel hunter. The condition of the Republic was more prosperous, and flourishing after the slaughter of these Citizens; For whilst friends do torment, and joyfully punish malefactors, the old contagion gins to languish, and that pristine fury dispersed amongst many dyes and determines in the author only: But if turgent sorrow shall improve the fertility of growing impiety, and the poison that's nourished in one member doth not only infect a single man, but corrupt also the whole alliance, than the compassionate Father in vain laments his conscious grief, the Mother in vain reputes of her unjust sorrow and that she hath thus polluted her innocent tears, which deserve to be punished, not for her own, but only for the guilt of her condemned son. And thus, whilst the same crime hath made them all equal, and they are as much allied by vice, as blood, let the whole family be accused, and the whole progeny be condemned! let no solemn honours confiscate with his heritage attend his hearse; no funeral rites grace and adorn his profane pile! Let not his condemned ashes enjoy the repose of a quiet Urn! Let his carcase lie unburied, that as well dead as alive he may suffer punishment.   

DECLAM. iv The Carthaginians did very ill, in crucifying a Captain unadvisedly waging war, though he returned with Victory.  
THough a reverend esteem is to be shown to Laws, and the sanctions of the Country are not to be despised, yet 'tis unjust (methinks) to condemn to the cross this Captain, who so unwillingly did violate but one of these, and that merely to defend the City, and all things besides, from the violence and injury of a furious enemy. Lawgivers know not what a day may bring forth; their Constitutions and Decrees must give place a little when occasion shall require, the Prudence of the General is disregarded; lest, if the Magistrate should by a Gibbet deter the Soldiers from conquering against their orders, they should so much fear capital punishment, as not to endeavour the safety of the Republic. How doth this Captain fluctuate, afflicted with the dubious fate of Metius, being on all sides distracted by instant death! If he should be conquered, he becomes a sacrifice to the insolence of his enemy; and so ruin and destruction must needs befall him; but if he triumphs, the cross, a gibbet, and a more ignoble fate attends him. However he had rather try the clemency of noted Carthage, than expose himself, his Country, to the cruelty of a Victorious, and odious Nation. He hoped that his good success might have easily atoned for the envy of the fact, and that it would not have been so ungrateful to Carthage; in regard he had been so adventageous to it. He fights therefore and overcomes, and by the votes of the Carthaginians he is adjudged to the cross. A man certainly most worthy of life, who for the public good made himself obnoxious to so severe a death.  
But what unjust cruelty is this, to hurry a Conqueror spared by the tempest of war and arms, to a punishment more barbarous than his enemy's sword? He that contrary to the Laws, and with suspense of success, or unfortunately joins battle, let him endure the deserved smart of his own rashness; but whosoever inflicts penance on a Conqueror, whose war both the favour of the Gods, and the event do allow of, he both disquiets and accuses Heaven. By what an unhappy kindness of the fates hath our captain survived the battle, to be reserved a victim for the ignominious cross! He might have fell (being conquered) by the revenge of his enemies, without the crime of a guilty Judge. But whilst by the unjust suffrages of the Citizens he is punished with a gibbet and disgraced too; the life of the Conqueror, and the justice of the Country go both to wrack.  
So falls our Captain, as famous for the merit of his excellent valour, as remarkable for the disgrace of an ungrateful City; who, that he might render Carthage victorious, was not startled at the danger, either of field or tribunal, but twice hazarded his life, and had twice conquered, if the Carthaginians had not been more obdurate than his enemies soldiers. He died not being overpowered in battle, neither through his own miscarrage or default of Fortune, his punishment is aggravated by the unworthiness of it, for he is adjudged by them to death, to whom by his victory he gave life.  
This great Severity may be thought the greatest Justice; which though it may be defended perhaps by Law, yet not in Equity. What if the Captain being assured of Victory did not expect the commands of his Country? An Enemy may be conquered before it can be determined by the Senate, whether a General shall fight or not. The Fate of this Officer is very deplorable, who might be compelled by the Laws to be conquered, but could not overcome securely against them. But the sense of the Law is to be regarded, and not the terms. The Carthaginians forbade their Generals to fight against the Orders and Constitutions of their Country, because Captains, especially young ones, are inflamed with a desire of Renown and Victory, and oftentimes run upon an engagement rashly, so that the Strength and Prosperity of the Republic is much abated, and the Glory of their Nation obscured by the fatal overthrow of their defeated Army.  
But our Captain, wise and prudent, as well as valiant, knew he should conquer before he sought; neither is it to be doubted, but that the Lawgivers themselves, if they had been present at the War, and had understood the conveniences of Fight would have advised to them an Encounter. How unjust therefore is it to condemn that, which, if present, they had approved of; and that too after the Victory was won, and Trophies raised through the Conduct and Valour of this wise Captain!— Certainly there is reason to suspect that the Carthaginians did not so much take ill the violation of the Law, as they envied the Honours and Triumphs of the Victor; and therefore censured him to so shameful a death. His doom was barbarous and cruel, and if after the dangers of War the Citizens shall thus at home threaten the cross to their victorious Captains, they may deservedly fear, lest hereafter they should want men to defend their Country.   

DECLAM. V Whether Codrus did well in devoting himself to destruction, and losing both his Life and Liberty for the safety of his Country.  
Against Codrus.  
SEeing there is no Happiness to a people, but what depends on the Counsel and Valour of a prudent Prince, He therefore that throws away his life for his Country's good, seems not so much to prevent its misery, as to increase and hasten its approaching Ruin. For after the decease of a valiant Emperor who dares not assault a people wretched, and without a head? Who dares not provoke them being destitute, and void of Strength? Who hopes not to subdue them, and to raise Trophies to himself from their Spoils, seeing they are without Counsel, which is a stronger fortress against their Enemy, than Bulwarks and Castles.  
The sudden death of Codrus might perhaps remove from his Country some present calamity; it might perhaps disperse an imminent Storm. But (alas!) to what Evils is it left exposed, now he is gone, who could alone preserve it who whilst he lived was its only safeguard? There is no Law observed now the Emperor is dead. The distracted People sheathe their swords in their own bowels, and by mutual slaughters bring that destruction upon themselves, which was forbidden by the Oracle to fall upon the Peleponensiaus. No Homage, and Obedience is paid to Governors, the Subject hath shaken off the yoke from his neck, and every miscreant lays unjust claim to that Empire, which was left by the Prince's voluntary death— Thus (O Codrus!) hast thou involved others in thine own Ruin, and thy Death hath been more pernicious to thy Country than ever could thy Life be, which was so odious (as thou thought'st) to the Athenians. But yet 'twas so dear to the Gods, as that thine Enemies were commanded not to deprive thee of it, or to dip their swords in thy precious gore. But thou disdainest so kind a Favour, and by fight (like the Giants) against Heaven, hast exposed thyself to an ignominious Death. For Codrus did not Heroically in the Field discomfit his Enemy with a threatening look, neither shining in Armour, or besmeared with Blood, did he breathe his last, but deludes his Enemy with a disguise in the habit of a poor man, and doth spontaneously embrace a degenerous Death.  
Seeing he undertook such great things for his Country, he (without doubt) proposed to himself great Rewards; such as should purchase him an eternal name, and transmit his Fame to future Ages. But who will lament his immature Fate, whereas the Ruin of the Republic is to be more deplored? What Subject will sing his Encomiums, seeing he hath deceivep not only his Enemies, but his Friends too? His Fate is deplorable on both sides, seeing by his death the Garland is won, and the Empire is destroyed. Thou wast inflamed (O Codrus!) with too great a Devotion and Zeal for thy Country, who wast so forgetful of thy Life and Liberty, and didsed so contemn the Care of the Gods. If the former course of thy Life was just, yet now thou hast committed an heinous Crime, thus by offering violence to Nature, and exercising Tyranny over thyself, Let not Nature be thus violated!  
Codrus hath lost his golden Liberty, to free his Country from filthy Bondage; hath laid down his Life to give it continuance, and to rescue it from Death; But how can it survive, and live, when he is dead, who by his Valour alone did preserve and defend it, and who (whilst in Being) was both the Delight and Ornament of the People. He had more prudently consulted the Athenians good, if he had still reigned, and if the Enemy had not killed the Prince, but the People, and brought them to so sad and fatal an end.  
Thus lived this stout Hero, who might lawfully support the sinking state, might punish the pride of his triumphant Enemies, might with his Life and Valour (seeing he could purchase Victory by his own Blood) have animated and encouraged the conquered Athenians, and repaied their slaughter again with ruin. For 'tis not the part of a Valiant Captain to yield at the first wound, but obstinately to pursue flying Victory, and with a pertinacious resolution, solicit adverse and reluctant Fortune; and as it were extort violently from the Gods the Palm of Victory.  
Codrus by his signal Piety to his Country, hath through his Death purchased to the Athenians Victory and Safety; But yet he had showed himself more wise, and valiant, if escaping but one, though unhappy battle, he at length by a more prosperous event of War, had made himself Victorious, and his Country too.   

DECLAM. VI Whether Paulus Emilius did well, who, utterly despairing of the Safety of the Republic, rushed wilsully into the Battle, and caused his own Death.  
AFter so unfortunate a management of Affairs, after so cruel a slaughter of his Soldiers, and the total overthrow of his whole Army. Can Aemilius (do you think) live an ignoble Life? Do you believe I can endure Hannibal flushed with Victory, and triumphing over a routed Consul? Seeing my Soldiers are so ambitious of the glory of Valour, that when their Strength fails, and their hands are unprofitable, they had rather expose their heads to the Conquerors weapons than decline a Fight, as if they would hinder Victory, when they cannot conquer: Seeing my Common Soldiers give so excellent a specimen of Roman Courage, shall Paulus their General basely fly? Seeing my stout Cavalry protected me in the Battle, and so bravely fell in the hot dispute, shall I basely survive them, and run to Rome? And there (like Women and Children) lament the Ruin of the State which I had so illy defended? Shall I only shed tears for my Country, whilst you faithful Souls pour out no less than your last Breath? Rather let mine Enemy slice me into a thousand pieces, and spill my very heartblood; that the Citizens may know, that I contemn Death with the same Courage, as I did formerly their unjust Reproaches, and let the Conqueror Hannibal understand, that we have yielded to him in Fortune only, but not in Valour. I fear not to be censured Rash and Furious, and too unadvised in my Actions, for what do I desire that seems so unreasonable? Seeing I cannot live without Reproach, and Envy, I only seek an honest Death.  
You all know in my former Consulship, when things were better with me than now, how I scarce escaped with my Life from the Popular Tumult; And what do you think the displeased People will do in so great a Desolation and Slaughter of their Soldiers? But why do I mention things of so long a date? In this present Consulship the ungrateful Citizens did upbraid with Sloth and Cowardice, though by my Care and Counsel, I diverted this Plague that hung over their heads, and rescued my men from the jaws of their Enemies by detecting their Treacheries. What a man have I shown myself in this Battle, who have fought illy, and (seeing I durst not die) who have fled more basely? Fancy me leading, like Cattle, the remainder (if there be any left) of my rallied Army, through unwayed Mountains, and Summer Thickets! Fancy us to fly (like Hearts) and to be stun'd with the noise of our close Pursuers! Fancy us entering the City overwhelmed with grief, and their Sorrow to swell at our Approaches! I am not to be carried there (after the Roman manner) in a Triumphant Chariot; And indeed, I know not the use of such a Chariot, unless to carry me to the utmost limits and bounds of the Earth, whither the name of Hannibal, the Report of this Overthrow, and the Execrations of the City cannot reach.  
Methinks I see the Patrons, and the Clients mixed together, and all in Public! Methinks I see the wretched Matrons running on all sides to the Hallowed Temples, and sweep the Altars with dishevelled Tresses! We hear nothing but the Howl and Lamentations of the Citizens; nothing but the complaints of them that weep. In vain they do now implore my Aid; now they curse that unhappy General. Methinks, I hear the enraged Multitude railing against me in such language; Give me my Children! Restore my Parents! Return my Soldiers, who may defend the walls! All which Clamour is an harsher sound than noise of the treacherous Carthaginians, that assanlted us in the Rear, than the groans of Soldiers beset with Enemies, than the dismal voice of Hannibal, whereby he pronounced to his Soldiers certain Victory.  
But though things are grievous, yet if they benefit my Country, I can bravely bear them. I could wish to live though in Disgrace and Infamy, if thereby I could any wise advantage the Republic. But what profit can accrue to you from the single Valour of one, and he but a private person? Where else can I have another Army? With what Courage will Soldiers fight under so unhappy a Captain? Surely they will find a more prosperous General. Why being a Coward do I live so long? unless it be to see another Consul subduing those Enemies that conquered me, or to see the demolished walls of Rome; the former will reflect upon his Name, the latter injurious to his Piety; but a glorious death will deliver from the Infamy of both.  
I will follow you (O my Soldiers!) and with you will I die, and (what pleases me most) I will die in the Battle. Neither will I perish by every obvious and feeble hand. I will break my way through the thickest ranks, and through the midst of mine Enemy's weapons will I smite Hannibal. And (my dear Fellow-soldiers!) I will appease your Ghosts, either with the Victor's gore, or else sacrifice mine own, and so, shall I escape Contumelies, and Reproaches, and shall wash away mine Ignominy with mine own Blood.   

DECLAM. VII. Whether Tullus Hostilius did well, who first taught the Romans the Art of War? Aff.  
I Am persuaded you marvel that I being in a Gown, should take upon me the defence of Arms: But I do not personate the Soldier, but act the Orator; and why such wondering at my undertaking? Seeing I am only about to defend that, which both protects me and the Republic too. 'Twas War that laid the Foundation of the Commonwealth, and 'twas War that raised it to such a pitch of Glory. In vain the Warlike God of Rome had in stolen Embraces begat Romulus: unless the Youth by traduction had his Father's Spirit. In vain had Numa taught them facred Rites, and holy Cercmonies, unless Hostilius by his Arms had protected his Religion and sacred worship of the Immortal Deities. Jupiter himself is of no esteem without his thunder, and disarmed Apollo appears ridiculous.  
Rome the Mistress of the whole world, merely flourished by the help of Mars; and hath raised eternal Monuments and Trophies of Valour; whereas other Nations have lived ingloriosly without Arms. Not the least spark of Roman Prowess had appeared, if Hostilius had not instituted Martial Discipline. 'Tis true, War doth sometimes rage amongst harmless People, and those must needs be subdued, who cannot with Arms assert their Right. You would not have your Country the Scene of War, but how can you expect a Freedom from the same, when every member of the State wages an intestine War against itself? I mean the mutual conflicts of disagreeing Passions; and (if we believe Philosophy) we had not lived unless sprung from the Quarrels of the jarring Elements, neither can we die unless dissolved by the Discord of our first Principles.  
Is Martial Discipline ingrateful to your ears? And must this Art worthy of Eternity, be utterly abolished, without which, Domitian could not so much as kill a Fly? Perhaps you dread a Warlike Death? as if Soldiers so well acquainted with it, did not know how best to suffer it, as if they did not understand what themselvers were, who behold Death daily triumphing over dead bodies; so that we may say (what some of Philosophy) that the Military Art is the Meditation of Death Hostilius did not institute it by Man's Advice, but by the Counsel of the Gods. For there was in the world such softness of Spirit and effeminacy of Mind, that the Art of War was given from above to prevent the degeneracy of the Masculine Sex. Jupiter himself had had a Squob upon the earth as well as Vulcan, unless Mars and Victoria had come to assist him against the Giants. And do you not yet esteem Gradivus for a Deity? Is his a fictitious Godhead, when Emperors his Adorers are esteemed Deities? Do you thus requite him? If this be the case? Away (ye Philosophers!) with your Heroical Virtue! Away with thy sacred Buckler (O Rome!) dropped from above as a proof of its Divinity! Away with the feigned Gods of the Poets! and with Jupiter himself! Let Heaven fall!  
But I fear, lest, if I am too tedious, the Tribune will inflict upon me a Military Mulct. I have sounded a Retract: And if you think I have not defended Hostilius well enough (like an Orator) with my Tongue, I am ready to fight for him (like a Soldier) with my Sword.   

DECLAM. VIII. Whether Horatius is guilty of Death, who killed his Sister for weeping at the sight of the Spoils he took from her Paramour? Aff.  
CEase to wonder that I dare appear against and accuse Horatius, whom the Romans have acquitted; and unworthily Crowned with triumphant Laurel! Behold! the man besmeared with his Brother's blood, and being not content with one Impiety, he goes on to propagate unexpiable crimes. Thou wretched Villain! Whither did thy Fury hurry thee, thus to revenge the tears of thy Sister dropped at the hearse of her deceased Sweetheart, thus, not to suffer her to enjoy her Lover nor to lament him neither? It had been more becoming thyself a Roman, to grieve that he happened to be an Enemy, and that 'twas thy misfortune to shed his Blood, and that thy respect to thy Country had so surpassed thy Kindness to thy Family and Sister. Love and Mildness are natural to Women; and therefore not to be removed with Sword and Violence. Thou wast content not with the Victory obtained over the Curiatij, but thou ventest thy rage upon Female Innocence, and levels thy Malice at thine own Sister.  
O Horrid Wickedness! worthy the memory of future ages. For who but this Horatius (like a fierce Lion from his prey) would have returned from the slaughter of his murdered Brother, and not yet glutted with Blood, would sheathe his Sword in a woman's Bowels? What have ye done (O Romans!) in acquitting a person both guilty of Parricide, and Ingratitude too? How can you endure that such a miscreant should live within the Confines of your Empire? Thou (O impious Rome!) who hast filled the World with War and Ruin, and contemnest the Deities with reproachful threats; Thou (I say) at length art justly punished, and deservedly suffers the thunder of the Gods, and the Frowns of Heaven. Thy Foundation was laid in gore, and thy Deeds are Bloody, and thy Offspring Vicious and debauched. Why dost thou glory in such lewd Actions? And why dost thou not punish this Murderer amongst the most flagitious Malefactors? If we should ransack the Corners of the whole world, we shall never find an Example, that can parallel the Ingratitude, and the savage Barbarity of cruel Horatius; who offering his vanquished Enemies, to his Angry, and injured Country, hath committed an heinous Fact, and hath sullied his name with perpetual Infamy, in spilling the Blood of his Sister for a sacrifice to his Fury. Nero and Caligula those monstrous Parricides of that age deserve not so much the names of Apes, and Vipers, as he to be branded with Eternal Ingratitude.  
If (according to the saying of that noble Roman) it is more honourable to save one Citizen from death than to slay a thousand Enemies, of what horrid Villainy than is he guilty, who after a signal Victory hath inhumanly destroyed a poor woman, and toolt away the Life of one, for whom he had done well, if he had resigned his own? What if full of Fury, he came laden with the Spoils of his conquered Enemy? What if his Sword was still died with the tincture of their Blood, yet the Inhumanity and Brutishness of the Action deserves no mercy? Should he travel the Universe, he would scarcely find a Patron of his wickedness.   

DECLAM. IX. Horatius' vindicated.  
I Wonder with what face ye Romans dare condemn Horatius, who rescued even now from Fire and Sword not only your Republic but your Lives too, who hath snatched them from the jaws of death, and safely preserved them. Ingrateful Rome! How he hath deserved so ill at thine hands, as thou shouldst thus destroy him? 'Tis a bloody Crime to kill him, to whom thou art more obliged than to thy Father Romulus; For he only drew the bare model of the City, but the other secured it when Populous with Inhabitants, when crowded with People, and surely 'tis better not to be, than to be a Slave.  
But why is he come to this? what fault is there in him, besides his Indulgence (if that be a Crime) to his dear Sister? who was the only cause, that she should enjoy, being dead in the shades below, that Sweetheart, whom she could not obtain alive on Earth above. But if he did it out of mere Revenge, than this is as commendable as the former Action, and there is more of Glory, more of Horatius in this, than there is in that; For his noble Spirit scorned that a Roman Lady, and his Kinswoman too, should with improper tears, and unseasonable grief so servilely lament the death of his Enemy. He would not have the very Sex to want its Praise; and so great was his Zeal and Affection to his Country, as that he would not spare his offending Sister. But if none of all her Virtues, and Deserts can wipe off the guilt, or make an Atonement for this Crime; yet pardon (I beseech you) her for her Father's sake● Pity and behold him with much Clemency; he will scarce survive after this great Disgrace, and thus you'll kill two Noble Romans with one blow.  
But consider I pray. His provocation to the Fact extenuates the Gild: For seeing yourselves, your Fortunes, and all that you have you own to his Valour, that unhappy Woman by her impertinent grief, seems to prefer the safety of the Enemy, before her Fathers, or her Country's welfare; and appears to be troubled at nothing else, but that the Third did not perish with the two other Brothers. Rome may shortly want another preserver, for the Albans are a free People, never under Subjection, and therefore 'tis doubtful, whether they'll keep their League, and endure your Government, utterly disregarding their own Liberty: And then Horatius may be as useful, as he was before; and that Army which sent back their Legions untouched, and triumphant to Rome, may again most wonderfully defend you, and strike a terror into all your Enemies: For without doubt where ever is this other Genius of our Commonwealth there will be the Fates of the Alban. For our valiant Captain hath destroyed their Forces with his own hand.  
But now if a Father's Prayers and a Father's Tears, if a Victory purchased by himself alone; If Innocence and the Danger of an ensuing War cannot wash off, and Expiate this Crime; Go on then with your rash Judgement! Punish with death this execellent Citizen! Condemn (if you please) stout Horatius; but consider withal your Strength is weakened, your Sinews are cut, and that Rome will fall with its brave Captain.   

DECLAM. X. Zopyrus cunningly commanded his body to be torn, and wounded, that he might betray, by the Stratagem, the City of Babylon to King Darius.  
For Zopyrus.  
THough it may seem unjust to lay down our Lives for the public good, because repugnant to Nature, and inconsistent with the Cowardice of timorous men; yet there is nothing certainly more noble and glorious, than after the Virtuous course of an honest Life to resign our breath, and all for the Safety of our King, and Country. Now this Zopyrus that so injured his body to betray the City, is as commendable as he, who falls a sacrifice for the Kingdoms glory; For he did not die with Infamy and Disgrace, but lived not only to the Honour of his Country, but to the Reproach of his Enemies, and to his own credit and reputation. If the welfare of the Public had required his Life, he would have laid aside Mortality, and have put off his body as willingly and as readily, as he had deformed it. And thus Zopyrus devotes himself to ruin for the safety of his Country. And how much better is it to deface the Beauty, to tear the Limbs, and to rage with Cruelty on the parts of his Body, than to melt down his Strength and exhaust his Spirits by Softness and Luxury, and so to ruinated the whole Structure.  
Who more worthy than Zopyrus? Who more to be beloved? who to adorn his Country with Peace and Glory, hath represented himself an ugly Spectacle. Whosoever dispraises him doth in effect commend the Timorous, and Slothful, and hints this as his Disgrace, that he had profusely spoiled the Sweetness of his Aspect, the Charms of his Face, and wasted prodigally his very Blood for his Country, and shows he had rather the Desolation of the Public, than the Ruin and Destruction of one private Feature. He hath survived long enough, who hath lived to the Public; and his days are not to be accounted short, who is registered in the Monuments of Immortal Fame.  
'Tis an unworthy Age that prefers Beauty before Valour, and that is much displeased that the Country owes its Defence to Scars and Wounds. Behold Zopyrus grasping Victory with his own hands! See the demolished Walls! the  Houses, and the whole City of Babylon lying waist and razed! and those things that were in vain attempted by the Strength of thousands, are now effected by the Arm and Policy of one Man! Go on brave Captain with thy undaunted Valour! Despise the reproaches of malevolent tongues! And big with Renown, the Reward of thy Deserts, be thou a Monument of Valour, and an unimitable Pattern to succeeding Ages!   

DECLAM. XI. Against Zopyrus.  
IF Zopyrus had well weighed and considered of those exquisite pains, which he so miserably suffered in his tortured Body, certainly he would never have exercised such Cruelty on his innocent Members, and by an unhappy Stratagem, have wounded his Enemy through his own Bowels. He had better have killed himself outright, than thus to besmear himself infamously with Blood, and to inflict upon himself those dolorous Torments, which make him weary of his life, and to covet death.  
Though he was so sturdy as a little to endure the sharp penance of his slashed limbs, yet he unwillingly suffered that ugly Deformity, which made him horrible to others, and a wretched Spectacle to his own self. The squalid Complexion of his crimson Face was so far from pleasing, that it terrified Darius; and if he affrighted the King, for whose Glory and Honour he endured the Penance, how much more loathsome was he to others, who may justly doubt whether he be a man or Fury? For the loss of his Lips, Nose, and Ears make him rather resemble the Picture of a Monster, than the Shape of a man; For his cheeks are besmeared with a ghastly die, his eyes are glutted with the Streams of his own Blood; and he that should triumph and boast in shedding his Enemies, by an unhappy Error, spills, and wallows in his own gore.  
But now he deservedly feels the smart of those Punishments he inflicted upon himself; he affects not the sweetness of refreshing odours: but is sad and melancholy amidst the scents and breath of perfumed Roses; his ears are stopped, and hears not the voice of charming Eloquence; his mouth is crammed, and utters no Oratory, but remains silent; so that every one doth injure, and affront Zopyrus, and vex his sores with new wounds.  
Thy Case is sad Zopyrus! what is there that can delight thee in the whole world? All men hate thee, and all fear thee: wherefore think thyself scorned and odious, and see (if thou hast got any eyes) thy maimed Limbs, and lament the Defects of thy crippled Body: But this is thy only comfort, thy necessity (according to thy deserts) of suffering these things. But now, if the want of these Members make him so dreadful a Spectacle in the sight of others, how frightful and cruel must he seem to his own self! For who would lick his own Blood? who but a mad man, would with voluntary stripes chastise himself? In this he appears more bloody than a Butcher, who, though he slays the beast, yet spares himself; But he after he had wreaked his Spite, and rage on his Enemies, he executes his Tyranny upon his own self, and that not so much out of a Concern or Affection for the Public, as to discover his Cruelty and Madness, for which he is rather to be punished than commended. And what reason is there, why he should not suffer, unless because he cannot endure enough? For his members already have been so forely handled, that no cuts, and slashes, no pungency can be added to his former dolours; unless all his Pains be wholly swallowed up by the sting of death; wherefore without doubt, he had never committed so heinous a Fact, unless encouraged by the hope of a prosperous Fortune. But we do not see that Darius advanced him; and indeed neither did he deserve Promotion; for he might have showed his Zeal and his Courage for his King and his Country many other ways, and those more proper for, or becoming a man. But that which increases the Absurdity of the Action was, he stained his hands in needless Blood, which neither the time nor necessity did require of him; for neither thy Country nor thyself (Zopyrus!) were in any danger; and Darius, without thine assistance, could have either contemned Babylon, or else have conquered it. What if the City had been overcome? What if thy Persia had been laid waist? Thou couldst not have died more miserably, than thou didst now; For thou hast so hacked and hewed thy manlike Face, and so basely spoiled thy handsome Limbs, that I question whether the Enemy could have mangled thee more. To conclude, I prithee (Zopyrus!) be sensible, by thy loss, of thy great Folly, and wish for (though too late) and prefer thy Safety before a Victory.   

DECLAM. XII. Brutus perceiving that his Sons endeavoured the Restauration of Kings among the Romans, dragged them into the Forum, and before the whole Assembly caused them to be scourged with Rods, and afterwards cut off their Heads.  
For Brutus.  
SEeing the first Age of Rome was so miserably spent under the cruel Tyranny of seven Kings, and because the City in its Infancy was so oppressed as to be ready to expire in its very Cradle, I'll be hanged, if ever the Romans are Lords of the Earth, or if the City be ever Empress of the whole World, I dare warrant that the Sceptre shall never any more be swayed by Tyrants, and that extinguished Monarchy shall never be revived, so as to involve us again in another Bondage. The people of Rome have found by Experience that Kings are not only proud by Name, but by Nature too; and that they have infringed the Liberties, and Privileges of the Public; and that though they were valiant, yet they did not so much protect by their Courage as destroy their Subjects. I cannot relate without Dread and Horror, how often Tarquin hath drawn his Sword against the City, how often he hath more raged in Peace, than in times of War, that he might see the gaspings, and distorted looks of dying men; that he might hear the sighs and groans, and the sad complaints of the miserable.  
Whosoever wishes a new Succession to this last of Kings, he is worthy to suffer all manner of Thraldom, he is sit to be the first Instance of his Cruelty; and let him endure a Tyrant in his very Father. If such Princes as these are fit to rule, let your old distemper return again; if you delight in new Fury, and in a fresh disease, then let Kings be restored again. But if a Consular Government excel a Kingly, which doth not only punish the Murderers of the Citizens, but takes care for, and defends the Liberty of the City, then let Monarchy die with Tarquin; and let not one Tyrant rule with a milder Government, but let more Nobles consult and act for the good of the Public: let them defend the City as well from Domestic Confusions, as Foreign Invasions; and seeingboth the Consuls have Power and Command over one City, and that but a little one, let them conquer the Nations over which they preside; let them make their Enemies and Captives become their Citizens, and all the Provinces of Italy to become Roman.  
A single Monarch being hardly enough for one Sceptre never by Conquest enlarged his Dominions, but suspecting the Fidelity of his People, he is wont to rule in Poverty, and Want, by reason of his oppression, whereby he uses to defend his Territories; and he weakens his Subjects to prevent their revenge. Various Slaughters suffered not Rome to grow to the state of Manhood; nor was it safe for the Kings that the Romans should wax old, lest any by their Deserts should aim at the Kingdom; so that Punishments and Torments were inflicted to suppress the growth of flourishing Virtue. Thus the People under a Roman King obeyed a Tyrant: no man lived securely, but whosoever was suspected, though harmless, was condemned to death, and whosoever lamented the Innocent, was punished as Guilty.  
But now the Consuls emulating each others Virtue, make Laws for themselves, as well as for the People; and defend with their own the Roman Liberty. One can't so much oppress, but the other is as ready to redress their Grievance: neither can they vex the Republic with private Animosity; but they must turn their Fury upon their own selves. And thus the haughty Lion affrights with a noise the common Herd, and preys only upon little Flocks, but when he hath in view another Lion, he is struck dumb, and silent; and they both disdain the neglected Cattle, but both emulous and jealous of each others Honour, and neither brooking the equality of a Rival, do engage mutually, and terrify no more the despised droves, but exert their Fury upon, and seek to devour their own selves.  
If this Consular Government please the Senate, than these Roman Youths may not by Force subvert it without Punishment. They seem to undermine the City, to affect the Kingdom, and to revoke themselves instead of Kings. These Younkers certainly aspire too high, who take up arms against the Fathers, Consuls, and established Laws of Rome. Professed Enemies, that dare do any thing, never strike at the Form of Government. Every Nation may (as it pleaseth) Dispose of its people and may restrain them by what ties it listeth; and Cities at Enmity do not give Laws to themselves, nor do they foment civil Broils among their Citizens or embroil their Citizens in civil wars.  
Seeing therefore the Government of the Consuls is either to be established by the death of the Conspirators, or to be abrogated for the future by a free Remission, the most just Brutus did justly condemn his Sons for the Liberties of his Country, and for the Privileges of Rome; And that he might not survive a childless Parent, he the Assertor and Father of the Laws hath translated into his own Family, and hath adopted the Citizens in the room of his Sons.   

DECLAM. XIII.  
Against Brutus.  
AFter the Foundation of the Empire laid in Blood, and such a continual succession of horrid Cruelty (as if it was just, that as Rome in her Infancy consecrated her future Grandeur by so a Barbarous a Crime, so she should defend her Safety by repeated Slaughters, and Patricidial Murders maintaining thereby the limits of her Power) I say, after the frequent Violations of the Laws of Nature, and the exile and banishment of proscribed Humanity, or Prescription of exiled and discarded Humanity; 'Tis no wonder that Brutus should exert his rage on his own flesh, and more Cruel than Indians (who only devour their dead Friends) should wreak his Fury upon his own Bowels. He slays his own sons, those dear Pledges of himself, because he would not favour the private ties of Affinity: But let him satisfy his Fury so savagely, and that he may be a safeguard to Rome, let him be fierce and inhuman.  
Cease (ye Romans) by the help of the Gods to reduce and subdue foreign Nations, seeing Rome by her shedding blood, and by her flagitious Crimes, hath given a specimen of her future Impiety; and Brutus the Assertor, and Patron of Rome, having left his Enemies, prosecutes with Hatred his own Sons, and triumphing at home in a bloody Victory, is become a Conqueror within his own house. Let not the Deities hope any more for their wont Flames, nor for the solemn Pomp of former Victims, seeing Brutus spared not his very Household Gods; whilst he equally forgets both his Piety, and his Sons; by the death of his offspring he shows himself to be but a cruel Parent, by whose blood he hath purchased an ill gotten Liberty— After such great Specimens of an ambitious Spirit, and Crimes successfully committed against the Republic, he now attempts a greater wickedness, and that such an one, which cannot be expiated by any Sacrifice. For having got the Empire, and by the death of the Kings, having obtained his desire, he does now beging to wanton in Cruelty, and being backed with Power, doth more violently rage. His Sons, that resist his growing Tyranny, he prosecutes with a cruel affection and strikes them through with darts of Love, and (like a swelling deluge checked by violence) he invades them presently with a double force, and lets them fall as victims, for the defence, and safeguard of the new Empire.  
Most unhappy Young Men! whose Valour alone hath made them miserable! who have done nothing worthy of death, unless it be Capital, to resist the unjust Pride of their Father, and to defend Rome from the Treacheries of Brutus. Things are come now to that pass, that there is need both of the Pious and Valiant to restore the Republic; For what could they do else? if they had not offended against Brutus, they had sinned (which had been worse) against the Gods and Country too. A crime is to be chosen, about which they did not long deliberate. The vainer name of a Father could not affright them, nor the reverence of a Parent deter them; For let him be no longer a Father of Children, if he will be no more a Parent of his Country. The Young Men had a natural Veneration for Majesty, and therefore respect and honour the Kings, and defend their Prerogatives to their last breath.  
The City was so oppressed with Cruelty, and so bloody with the slaughter of murdered Citizens, that the Gods themselves could hardly relieve it without exposing themselves to death and danger. But Brutus hastens to his Sons with the greatest Zeal, and at once doth use both Prayers and Threats, he soothes them up with winning Insinuations, he accosts them with language as soft as deceitful. He objects unto them the Honour, Glory, and Allurements of Empire, the great Pleasure, and Privilege of Governing: But our Young Men oppose, and embrace not this wheedling Courtship, whose Fidelity is not to be shaken, either by Price or Pleasure, no not by death itself, and therefore the cruel Father advances himself to the highest pitch of Fury and Impiety, and by the dismal Tragedy of his Sons, sacrifices to the Liberty of his Country; that those whom he could not provoke by his Ambition and Tyranny, he might at least overcome by Death and Envy: Thus whilst he hath beheaded his Sons, and endeavours to spill his own blood, he doth not only lose the Reputation of being Humane, but buries his name in silence and oblivion. He deprives himself of the comfort of Posterity, and of that Immortality which is for ever propagated by a dear offspring.   

DECLAM. XIV. When a certain City was daily harassed by continual War, the Citizens at length decreed among themselves to demolish the golden Statue of the Emperor, to coin money for their subport, and maintenance.  
For the Citizens.  
IF you know not the greatness of Imperial Majesty, and how much to be defended by the Lives and Estates of Loyal Subjects; I say, if you do not any otherwise understand it, yet from hence you may learn, namely, that the Glory of the whole Empire depends upon the Safety of the Emperor, and as often as War shall require, Subjects (like Bulls to Jove) must fall victims to their Prince: Then certainly 'tis no such great matter to expend a little Gold (otherwise unprofitable unless in War) for the Honour of the King, for the defence of the City, Palace, nay of Majesty too. Nothing could be thought on more noble and more redounding to the Honour of the Emperor, or give a greater Proof of a Deity, than that Golden Statue pulled down and demolished in the defence of the City. If the Imperial Image could so protect the weak Citizens, and (by I know not what Charm) shows that it can effect somewhat that is August and Magnificent, if the Royal Essigies could assright Enemies, could stretch out its Fatal Arms, and kill those with the Cruelty of a Look, whom it cannot wound with its extended hands, I say, if the mere Figure could do this, what shall we think then of the real person, whose Statue could drive away his approaching Enemies? Let it therefore be domolisht, and by its fall, let it prove that there is nothing belongs to an Emperor, but what is Divine.  
We read that the Statue of Scipio did protect the Italians from the Carthaginians; and that his Relics and Ashes were as useful to Rome, as the living General. We know that an Enchantress can wound a man merely by waxed Images; and at once can hurt the Original and the Copy too; can strike the Image, and hit by Sympathy the Man too; so that, 'tis not so great a matter for the Imperial Statue to effect these things, seeing waxed Puppets have something of Life in them, and become Arbiters of Life and Death. Behold the misery of the poor City! Contemplate the sad Looks, hollow Cheeks, the paleness of the Inhabitants at the thoughts, either of present Danger, or fearful expectation of future Death! Both the Subjects and the Statue are all like to perish, and like to be involved in the same ruin. But is it not best to preserve them to secure the Citizens, the walls of the Emperor, and lastly, to protect the Emperor himself, and all by the destruction of one Statue? For 'tis easy after a Conquest, to erect, and raise new Images, and new Statues, and those greater; and with the Relics of this gold, after Fights and Overthrows, to make an absolute Image and consecrate it to Caesar.  
Let the golden Statue and the sacred Image be quite defaced, that it may be restored and raised more August and Divine: we do not envy the Emperor that piece of Divinity, as to be absent, unarmed, invisible, and yet by this Art to be present at his Battles, to stir up the feeble Citizens, whereby he shows himself not so much to be an Emperor, as a God.  
Though 'tis an heinous crime to violate any thing, that (for their noble exploits) is consecrated and devoted to the memory of our Ancestors, yet seeing neither the Peace of Countries can be enjoyed without Arms, nor Arms be procured without Pay, it may not seem a wonder, if we endeavour by our honest Ingenuity, to free ourselves from foreign Invasion, and restore ourselves to our fotmer Liberty, and ancient Glory. Ingenuous Spirits are ashamed to be put under, and to submit their necks to the Tyranny of a Yoke, and to become Tributaries to those whom we have freed from ruin and the jaws of Death; therefore we thought it good, rewards adding Courage to Soldiers to scrape off the gold from the Imperial Statues, and to coin it into money, and that not to defend ourselves only, but the Gods too: For we were reduced to that extremity, that unless we had laid out our money and care for the Safety of the Country, we had certainly perished and been destroyed by them; The Temples had been robbed of their Gods, and the Deities been deprived of their Temples too; they had condemned us to hard and miserable Bondage, and that which went nearest to us, they would have shackled our Hands with unwonted chains. But by this our Trick, we have prevented our Enemies from sacking Rome, and have triumphed over those who would have conquered us, and that which makes us more Noble and Happy, we have not flinched from our first Enterprise, but have stoutly resisted their fierce On-sets, and have subdued our cruel Enemies, and that with our Ancient, and truly Roman Valour; and have put their necks impatient of Bondage under our yoke, and (the Gods favouring our Cause) we have wholly routed them, and reduced them.  
Behold our Enemies enraged with grief, do liment and howl at their miserable Fate! and curse our Valour, and good Fortune too! Behold on the contrary us walking in State and Pomp! we are received with public acclamations, and the Gods have congratulated our fresh Victory, and thank us, for preserving them untouched and safe! with what Solemnity will our Triumph be celebrated in Pompey's Theatre? with what joy and shoutings are Trophies erected in Honour of our Victory? with what care is the Gold and Silver restored to their respective Statues? and the People of Rome are so far from derogating from, or eclipsing their Splendour, that they take care to preserve them and to adorn and gild them with greater Curiosity.  
Rome being secure from and having lost its Rivals, and the Gods being free from all Fear, let us not withdraw from Tumults, and betake ourselves to ease and quiet! Let the City enjoy her former Beauty, and Magnificence; and let the Roman People display their wont Glory! Let the Soldiers boast of their wounds and scars, and let them esteem them their most honourable Badges, and Ornaments of their Bodies.   

DECLAM XV. Against the Citizens.  
REligion is preserved inviolable among all Nations, and there is no Villainy so extreme, no Impiety so cruel, as to allow of, and favour horrid Sacrilege. A very Enemy himself (though never so much incensed) would scarce suffer the sacred Temples, and the Monuments of our Ancestors to be profaned and spoiled. But (ye Romans!) ye have laid aside all Conscience and Religion in so basely demolishing the Representative of the Emperor, which you ought to have protected with all your Strength, and with as great care as the Prince himself. Besides there was no need of committing so great a Crime, for the Desolations of War threatening Poverty, and the grim Aspect of approaching Death, aught to have animated them and increased their Courage in the Defence of their Liberty and Country, and of their own safety, and of their Princes too.  
O most earthly and sordid Souls! who breaking the Laws, and contemning and despising both Gods and Men, have thus villainously profaned most sacred Majesty (little less to be adored than a Deity itself) so that the Gods are unsafe, and Jove justly fears, lest you vile Miscreants (like Dyonisius the Tyrant) should presume to pull his golden Beard. If you could not otherwise have defeated your Enemy's Army, you had better have embraced an honest Death, than to endure a Life so scandalous, and stained with so horrid a Crime; it had been better to have been oppressed with Poverty and Bondage, than so ignominiously to live; and to purchase your Liberty at the price of your Innocency. What sacrifice can atone for this fact? Ye have (O ye Romans!) by throwing down the Monument of the Emperor, made an attempt on his sacred Person, and so are guilty of High-Treason.  
We do too much indulge the Parricides in suffering them to be openly and publicly defended, whom the Gods would have punish and slain too; For the appeasing of whose Anger the whole Religion of the City can scarce suffice: Because if we rightly consider their Losses, we shall find somewhat which besides War, and a Siege, we ought to deplore; somewhat that is sad and Tragical, which cannot at all be ascribed to an Enemy; For behold here are Citizens, who have added this impious Cruelty to all our miseries, that we seem merely to be supported by the Benefit of our Sacrilege, and midst the Terrors and Hardships of War and Hunger, to dare to abuse the Emperor, i. e. to profane, violate, and contemn the Gods themselves. If an Enemy had done this we had hoped for a Victim, and would have made them by their Fall to have expiated and atoned for their Gild. But now with what Hope? with the Assistance of what Deity can we take up Arms? for we have lost our Courage, because our Innocence, and (which is more) our Emperor too. Our Enemies rejoice, and begin their Triumph from our Crimes. The wicked Citizens boast as if they had defeated Hunger and their Enemies by their horrid Sacrilege; and indeed so they have; for the Heinousness of the Fact had scared them with i● Horror, and put them to Flight, unles● its Blackness had recalled them and move● them to Revenge, and so made them wit● a double Fury fall upon the Sacrilegious and exert their Rage upon them. If despair should make us Conquer, yet we should blush to enter the City, and be ashamed to visit those sacred Temples, whose Holiness, we have polluted with our unhallowed hands.  
Behold how these Pious Inhabitants have preserved their unhappy City! They have go● their sustenance by Sacrilege, by which we are fed for sacrifice, though a whole City is not Victim enough for such a Gild, where the Gods, the Emperor, nay our Enemies are to be atoned, and satisfied. We do not complain of trivial matters; nor are we content with a single Grief; but we lament the Condition of the whole City, which these Villainous Parricides have distracted, wasted, and spoiled in the Emperor: For after they had defiled themselves with this black Crime, they propagated the Contagion to the Vulgar, that every one might bear the proper Gild of his own Sacrilege: It grieves us to think how with a ravenous mouth we devoured the dismal Gates, and how greedily we swallowed even the horrid impiety. We owe to the Citizens that we ●ive, that we can courageously behold the horror of the Fact, and so great an Instance of Cruelty. You thank them for restoring your decayed Strength, for arming you with your Emperor, and making that a Prey to the Enemy, which they themselves adored whilst in the Temple. They have spoiled the tutelar Deity, more venerable than Hunger; they have spoiled the Emperor, more August than the Image. They have spoiled that, which standing, we might have lived innocently, even in the ruin of the City. If a Conqueror had entered, we might have been secure; For the sacred Majesty of such a Statue would either have extorted Religion from them, or if they have none, 'twill teach them some. But our Grief hath overcome our Hopes, and we have defiled our miseries, and (which is the last that belongs to the miserable) we have lost Pity.   

DECLAM. XVI. Manlius Torquatus to maintain the Discipline of his Camp, killed his own Son.  
For Manlius.  
I Am not Ignorant with what Prejudice I stand here before you in the behalf of Manlius; For I fear that these sad, and harsh Commands will be very ungrateful to your tender ears, which yet are wholesome for my Son, who either by Fate, or through Shame of declining Battle, was driven into the body of his thickest Enemies, and (as it happened) proved Victor: But he, whom no Law or Edict either of Father or Consul could keep from rashly breaking his rank and order, is to be restrained by the Sword. Let not Martial Discipline be corrupted by one ill Example lest the whole Army suffer through Default of one.  
Our Manlius aimed at something to be done, more August and Glorious than the soft Effeminacies of fond Parents; His Passion was more strong and severe than to defend and patronise his Bowels, his Offspring in so great a Wickedness. 'Tis Inhuman and horrid to hate his Issue, but yet to spare such a Son is worse than Hatred: the Law and Republic can't be so satisfied; Let the Son suffer for his rashness, rather than the Commonwealth rue for the wicked Indulgence of his Father. What People did ever more religiously preserve Martial Discipline than the Romans? To whom warfare was far more ancient than Parents or Children; whose well ordered Troops have advanced them from nothing to the Dominion of the whole world; neither can the Roman Glory be Eclipsed, nor the wide Empire of the Victorious, Shrink or Decay, unless this strong tye, or Union of distant Colonies be dissolved by Effeminacy, Lust or Luxury; whilst with a well disciplined Army (like a well fortified City) they did repel the Onset of their invading Enemies, they always returned with Triumphant Eagles; But whilst the Son of Manlius, breaking his ranks, obtains the Victory, he departs only not conquered.  
You have here (most equal Judges) Manlius acting the part, not so much of a stout and valiant General, as of a solicitous, and careful Parent, nor more commendable for his Justice than his singular Clemency, who even consulted the good of the Republic though 'twas to his own damage. He thought it far better to be the Lord of the Country, than to be called the Father of so stubborn a Son; neither did he study only the good of his Country, but of himself too; and whilst he punished his Son with death for declining the Commands of his Father, he preferred an honest Reputation before an infamous Offspring; and seeing he could not beget an Heir equal to his Parent, he would have none survive that is unlike so great a Captain.  
But Torquatus lives still, and as long as Martial Discipline, and Laws of Camps do flourish, Manlius the Patron of Arms will survive and never fall or decline, but with the very Standards: seeing he smote with the Axe his only Son, he hath vindicated his name from devouring obscurity. Thus he hath prolonged his Life by dying, and surviving himself, hath ' e'en by mortality made himself Immortal; And so aged Valour withstanding the Teeth of Time and Rottenness, hath transmitted him to Posterity without an Heir.   

DECLAM. XVII. Whether it is lawful to use Persian Pomp in the midst of War? Aff.  
Why should I doubt, I know no reason but that only seems unlawful (Persian-like) to grow rich. We adore a Penurious and a hard Fortune, and lament the loss of a golden Age, not so much because we are Vicious, as because we are Beggars; yea our minds are so impoverished (necessity causes such a degeneracy) that we cannot conceive the Splendour of the Persian Equipage. It becomes the Lords of the Earth thus richly to fight; That Magnisicence is honest, and those Ornaments glorious, which are only the rewards of Sweat and Valour. Persicus described with his Sword the whole Universe, and commenced Geographer by his own Victories; he understood Bactria from a Cloak, and the Sogdianis from an Helmet; his Steed hath been laden with Spoils of several Nations, and why then should he not proudly prance, who hath dared to fight for his Harness, and Trappings, and who will levelly the Mountains, and lay flat with the ground his Enemies too, that he might vex his crest with their weighty Jewels?  
That Pomp doth justly excuse Pride, and is neither vain, nor ridiculous, which is the reward of ancient Valour, and is a spur to new. Those who are afraid of Ghosts and Goblins, who can't undauntedly contemn the Fates, nor dare provoke death: Let them combat in squalid weeds, and mournful dress: But those that are of an approved Valour, and who draw Fortune after them bound in chains, to whom 'tis the same to war and triumph, why is it not lawful for them to breath perfumes, to shine with Oils and Balsams, and to enjoy the Testivity of a crowned brow, and to use in War all the Pompous Luxury that attends a Victory?  
Let the rude vulgar contemn that which is noble and gallant, as if Robes of Kings and Triumphal Garments must declare the Mind to be Proud and Soft: we have often seen Virtue (I know not by what unhappiness) half clad in tattered weeds, and scarcely covered without a Figure: But as if vile raiment were a Virtue itself, it will be a Reproach to the deserving to be richly attired; neither is he thought worthy of Praise, who dies for his Country, if he sacrifice himself with well ordered Hair, and if by chance an importunate Hero should with a trim aspect put to flight his Enemies, the austere Laws would condemn him as though still drunk with Victory. When Rome was reduced to so great extremity as wholly to despair of its sinking Empire, when the Sinews of War began to crack, and the Strength of the Republic began to languish, and Roman Valour could achieve no more, the Senators did not take Sanctuary in Forts and Garrisons, nor did fly to Arms, but adorned themselves with their Robes and Purple; whose Senatorian Pomp representing the Sages as so many Gods, did strike such a reverence into the amazed Enemy, that ceasing to resist, and awed with the Religion of the solemn Spectacle they began to fear, retreat, and worship. What need we care? If adverse Fortune befalls us, we shall die in the same gallantry, wherein we fought, and to the Angry Deities fall crowned sacrifices: But if our success be prosperous, that will give credit and reputation, and recommend the Honesty, Virtue of our Magnificence, and will vindicate the lawfulness of our censured Glory.   

DECLAM. XVIII. Whether Philostratus did well, who, to make Death Familiar, lived in a Tomb seven years?  
Against Philostratus.  
WHen I contemplate nothing but the noisome ruins of dead Men, and am conversant only amongst Vaults and Sepulchers, I seem already sentenced, and adjudged to death, having no other company in my squalid solitute, but the Society of Monuments and learned Marbles. I am encompassed on every side with gaping Tombs, but they are not vocal; for amongst the Histories and Epitaphs of famous Heroes, you will find a silence as deep, as the dismal Cell wherein they are cloistered. Here you may see the Urn of a Commander adorned with Poetry, and Laurel too; but as speechless as the heaps of his Enemies over which he triumphed; There you may read inscriptions as durable as the stone on which they are written, and which are sacred to the memory of a voluble Orator, whose mouth now is fuller of dust, than 'tis of Eloquence; and he that even now was begirt with a ring of living Admirers, now stands surrounded with the dumb Attendance of breathless Images.  
It is reported that the Statue of Memnon, saluted by the rays of the rising Sun, became vocal, as if the dead Image was Ambitious to proclaim the approach of so great a Deity, and as if that Musical God that found out Harmony, had been the Author, and Inventor of sounds too. But we need not the Influence of a propitious Heaven, here you may behold a Monument never saluted or seen by the Sun, and within it a Philosopher (like a certain Oracle) uttering speeches darker than the Cavern wherein he lies: For our Philostratus inhabits at once both his Study and Sepulchre too: He reads melancholy volumes that treat of death, and meditates of certain I know not what trivial notions, and invokes the Fiend with as fervent Zeal, as the warmer Poet his beloved Muse. But oh! Philostratus! we have heard some times that the Muses can inspire, but never knew before that death could dictate. Away with those solemn thoughts about your latter end! Fly swifter than Fate from the Putrid rumes of filthy Carcases, and keep thyself as safe from these as thou wouldst from Death! For within the narrow confinement of this sordid Cave, there is nothing lives, besides thee and worms: The Air is infected with Stench and Rottenness, and the place is infested with nought but Horror; with the deformed Shapes of Ghosts and Goblins.  
'Tis true, we read of the Vestal Virgins, that being once deflowered they were interred alive, and were condemned to the perpetual darkness of a dismal Den; and so extinguished at once both the Flame of their Life and Lamp too. But if thou (Philostratus!) liest hid any longer in the Cloisters of thy Tomb, we will suppose thee as criminal as the Guilty Nuns, and think the Austerity of thy Life to be not so much thy choice, as thy Penance. What Pleasure lies hid in the obscurity of a charnel House? Wanton Lovers affect the night, that they may act in darkness; But behold! all things are unfit for lascivious Embraces, all as cold as the Marble under which they lie; no kisses to be gathered, but from mouldered Lips, or from the Fragments that are left by glutted Worms.  
Behold thy Companions in thy gloomy Cave! Here are the Legs, and Arms; the Ribs and Thighs of thy scattered Ancestors, as void of Life as they are of Flesh; There lies a Head, which robbed of its Beauty and Brains too, is a lively Image of that death thou adorest; behold the sockets of their extinguished eyes! See the ruins of a nibbled nose, as if devouring Venus had been preying upon the dead, as well as the riots, and feasts on the living.  
What heinous crime hast thou committed, that thou alone thouldst live amidst the corruption of rotten Carcases; and inflict upon thyself that Punishment, which the greatest Tyrants do on their worst Enemies i e. join thyself alive to dead Bodies? But thou (O Nero!) in the mean time deservest Praises, as great as the Universe, which thou rulest, who after a cowardly and ingrateful Revolt of thy Soldiers, and their Reproaches, more intolerable than their Crime, didst deny to go quick into the Earth, and waste content to rest under a little spot, who hadst the possession of the whole globe: It becomes thee who hast subdued the world under thy Feet, to die standing, and thou, who didst contemn in thy looks and language the Bowels of thy dear Agrippina, wouldst easily despise the viler Entrails of thy common Mother.  
'Tis the Part of a Valiant, and Heroic Spirit, even against Fate itself, to levelly at those, who sit triumphantly, out of the reach of darts, in the Victorious Chariot, and to fear no more deaths blunter darts, than the keener steel of their Enemies. Vain are the Terrors of that petulant Fate, which in this only differs from a smooth Chameleon, that the latter is supported by the Attraction of Air, the former by the surreption of another's breath: There is no reason therefore, (Philostratus!) to spend seven years in a Tomb, the better to overcome a momentary death. The Destinies are Sisters, and weak in Sex, and infirm too; and their Instruments are softer, than the wool they spin; what! does a Distaff, a Thread, and Scissors affright thee? These are the Toys, not of Men, but Women; and are as harmless, as the soft smooth Fingers, by which they are managed, Physicians tell us, that decayed Nature is repaired again in the space of seven years, and that men are oftener clad with new Flesh, than new Garments; which if it be true, we believe thou livedst (Philostratus!) not that thou mightst die, but that thou mightst retrieve thy Youth, and that the whole bulk of thy Body (like the Hairs and Nails of other men) might be revived, and flourish with new Life. But beware, lest whilst thou lurkest in this gloomy shade, the Fates should think thee already dead, and so shouldst lose the expected approach of the desired Destinies, because already buried.  
Seeing therefore, Thou hast such an earnest desire to know death, leave this dormitory, and betake thyself to Mars' Field; and there thou mayst see the Soldiers brandishing a Sword and Death in the same hand, which as swift as arrows, peirces the breast of stout Champions, and purpled with gore, Victoriously triumphs over prostrate Captives! Think and meditate on divine Brutus, who with a careless Gallantry discoursed with Spectres, as with his familiar Friends. But if these Martial Camps, more dreadful with Horror, than Throngs of Men, do not please thee; F! to the mournful, yet lascivious tents of Venus, and there behold Virgins (like Basilisks) kill with the artillery of their Looks, shooting from their eyes glances keener than the shafts of their Enemies; For a deep furrow of a contracted Brow strikes a greater Terror than thy Sepulchre, and one tirannical Aversion of a disdainful Eye, scatters Darkness as blind as the God of Love. There you may hear fruitless groans equalling the Torments of a neglected Passion; and such blustering sighs, as if they would blow out those Flames, which they so violently fan; There you may see tears flow from a disconsolate Lover in such a deluge, as if they would extinguish those fires, which first caused them. Behold the Heart and Entrails so scrocht and burnt, that you would think their Breasts not so much the Fence or Guard, as the Urn of their Bowels.  
In these places, that Fate, which thou so desirest, thou mayst with the same labour both seek, and enjoy, and (like buried Lamps) mayst find in the open air that death, which thou couldst not obtain in thy closer grave. This we think (Philostratus!) to be a Prodigy greater than thy Life, that whereas the names of others do still survive because they are in Tombs, thine lives because thou wast a Sepulchre; and that Immortality, which others acquire by courting Fame, thou hast puchased by desiring death.   

DECLAM. XIX. Whether Cimon did well, who for the more sumptuous Interment of his Father sold both his Liberty and Himself too.  
'TWas wisely ordained by our Ancestors, that as men, whilst alive, should be honoured with the Tribute of observance and respect, so when dead, should be attended with the Ceremonies of a decent Funeral. Certainly a very commendable, and a most human Custom, whereby Men excel other Animals, who know no other Rites of Burial, than the Solemnity of being devoured by other Beasts, and who have no other Tombs, than the living Sepulchers of their Fellow Creatures. But Humane Nature abhors the Brutishness of such Obsequies; for a savage Conqueror seeing the field bestrewed with arms and scattered limbs, bedews his garland and sheds tears at the thoughts of his bloody Victory, and indulges his Enemies the civil pomp of an handsome Interment. Death puts a period to the most barbarous Cruelty, which never raves beyond the Fatal Stroke. Caesar wept at the Hearse and pitied the Fate of slain Pompey, whom when alive he persecuted with the greatest Fury, and with all the Methods and Arts of Ruin.  
How unhuman is that Country, which suffers even Strangers to lie unburied! How much more therefore ought we to Honour with a Sepulchre a Citizen a Kinsman! But how great an impiety to leave a Parent exposed to the open air! He is unworthy of his own life, that celebrates not with cost his Father's death: Can a Son be excessive in kindness so to his Parent? for whom not only his Wealth and Liberty, but let him expend his very Life too. He can give nothing to him, but what he derived from him. Is he only obliged to reverence his Parents, whilst alive? Must he contemn and spurn at them, when dead? whom Death among the Ancients did seem to consecrate, and whose Monuments were had in great Veneration. This our Heir therefore, whose Breast was inflamed with a Pious Ardour towards his Father, will not have him lie without a Sepulchre, and scorns that he should have no other Grave but a Prison, and therefore for the Magnificence of his Funeral, he sells his Liberty and himself too.  
We have here a rare Example of unusual Piety, and of a Filial Care! Cimon showed himself a loving Son to his Father, when alive, and a Pious one, when he was dead. He imposed voluntarily on himself the Yoke of Slavery, that his Father might have a Monument; and lost his Freedom, that he might enjoy the Privilege of the dead: He thought with himself, if his Father should want a Sepulchre, his name would quickly find one, and the Glory thereof be soon buried in Oblivion. Degenerous Posterity would lose the Example of so excellent Virtue, unless his Memory was committed to the faithful Custody of Eternal Marble, upon which his noble Exploits being engraven, would give duration to himself and to his Tomb too. He consulted both his own Fame and the Honour of his Father, who adorned his Hearse with such Solemnity. What renown hath he purchased, who by his own Liberty hath set free his imprisoned Father, and that he should not want a guilded Tomb, He himself was the price of the noble Sepulchre.   

DECLAM. XX. Cardan a Philosopher, and an ginger, having foretold the day of his Death, to fulfil his Prediction, and to save his credit, he starved himself with Hunger.  
UNhappy Cardan! whose Reputation is either hazarded, or his Life exposed to Danger! The greatness of thy Spirit cannot brook the want of the one, nor humane Nature endure the loss of the other. But oh the Vanity of that Name, which Wickedness and Impiety do alone perpetuate, and whose everlasting Memory derives its Immortality from a death attended with so much Infamy! But pardon me most learned Ashes, and most unhappy Relics! We dare not summon so great a Ghost, nor accuse the deceased of such a Crime. Thou hast obeyed the Imperious Motions of the Heavens, and the cruel necessity of the harder Fates. Cardan's Art is greater than Cardan; and cannot be eluded by the Endeavours of Mysterious Philosophy. But what? He that can master his Affections and nearer charms, which scorched and captivated other Mortals, doth he now yield to the distant, and straggling Stars? Those Stars (I say) which, (unless antiquity be deceived) are much inferior to our Humane Nature, and are compelled by it? How much more happily by the Flight of Birds, or Entrails of Beasts, might he have foretold the Event of things, and the hidden Treacheries and secret Stratagems of his Enemies!  
There are some things the Gods envy the knowledge of to Mankind, and would have them chastely buried, and to lie hid in their first causes; lest they should be profaned and violated by too bold a research; supposing it to be the greatest piece of Learning to understand the revolution of Times and Festivals, wherein it may appease the displeased Deities, and humbly offer Incense to the Celestial Empire. How much prying Mortals have been punished, and chastised for their too much Curiosity, the waters made infamous by a premature and unexpected Fate, and Vesuvius celebrated for the Death of Pliny, do abundantly declare. But if it be a fault to dive and search into the first Principles and Motions of things; If it be criminal to fly to the utmost Spheres, and to know more than vulgar Capacities, why was man endowed with reason? why doth that Particle of Divine Air animate a Being, that moulders and languisheth with Sloth, and Negligence, but that it climbs up to the Stars, and visits the seat of its first Original? Why is the Face of Nature not always the same, but various, sometimes famous for the clearness of its operations, and sometimes venerable for its mysterious workings? Why is it thus? but that it may exercise the activity of the vigilant Soul, and that there may be more matter for its contemplation? She is not satisfied (like the Body) with the delicacies of a treatment, nor with all the Luxury of the Fruitful Seas, or Teeming Earth. She delights not (like that) in such narrow Confinements, who feels not the bounds of an embracing Ocean, but rows about into unknown tracts with a boundless Freedom. How doth she soar aloft, big with scorn of this Inferior World? Not wearied with the difficulties of its cragged ways, how doth it imitate the incessant motion of the first Heaven?  
Most cruel Toil! we reach the Heavens with our Folly; and neglecting those things, which are the only support of the more solid Felicity of our Lives, we are distracted with the Images and Shadows of vainer Phantasms. To these we pay our more frequent devotions, and to these we offer our daily Homage, till tired at length with the ungrateful Journey, like the waves, a long time tossed with tedious Storms, we are wearied and languish, and are quite spent into Peace and Calmness. We are more affected with the narrow precincts of a little Village, more delighted with illiterate Ease, and a private Retirement, than with our former pale Endeavours, and with our traversing the Universe, when with a sacrilegious and bold Industry we wandered further than Hercules' Pillars, and went beyond the bounds as well of Modesty, as Nature.  
From no other Fountain flowed our Cardan's premature death, hastened, to wit, by pertinacious Industry, and an indefatigable Soul; which although Fatal to its Master, yet grateful Posterity will never mention without the highest Encomiums; and though far from Superstition, it raise no Altars to his Merits, yet will enrol him amongst Heroes, and advance him to the highest pitch of Mortals Ambition. Let others reproach his sudden Fate, and abrupt Funeral, Cardan dies through no other, but his own wickedness; and in vain had he desired in the Inhuman Get, or Venetian assassin, a more cruel mind to ascertain his Prediction; neither could he have found one more kindly cruel, as to free the Philosopher from infamous suicide; and Posterity would not have pardoned the Crime, if committed by any other hand beside his own, which though it did most unhappily obey his Master in his Death, yet hath made amends for the Injury by his learned Pen.  
But oh! the various Fluctuations of the Soul! This miserable man knows not what rock to cling to; at the same moment, he doth both at once determine, and yet doubt to die. This Procrastination of his Destiny, argues a timerousness not becoming Cardan, and he had died more gloriously stabbed with a Sword, than starved by Famine. But this may be said in Favour of the Deceased, that he yielded up the Ghost with an undaunted Courage; and whilst others oppressed with Penury, and grinding Necessity, breath out a faint and languid Spirit, he neglects his sustenance, and yields to Fate. He underwent not the Destiny of Petrius, and Renowned Cato, who enjoyed the Felicity of a sudden End, but satisfied the cruel Command of his Governor, whilst he determined to perish gently by little and little, and not surrendering to the Fates, but after a long siege, he truly perceives himself to die— And lest he should be unhappy in his Death, Let him enjoy for me a silent Urn and peaceable Ashes! Let the Stars be propitious, whose influence he asserted even with his Life and Blood! Nor let the Arts be silent of him, who was their great Patron and Protector.   

DECLAM. XXI. Alexander, being saluted the Son of Jupiter Hammon, and thereupon arrogating to Himself Divine Worship, is accused of Pride by his Soldiers.  
He defends himself.  
SEeing I have exposed myself (O ye Macedonians!) to so many dangers in your behalf, seeing I have preserved you safe from the Injuries and Violence both of waters, and Enemies, at Granicum, Cilicia and Arbela, seeing I have stoutly maintained the Honour and Glory of the renowned Macedons, and have added, by my Victories, the subdued world to your Empire; I had thought, after such Divine Testimonies of my Courage you would have subscribed to mine Opinion, and would have affectionately embraced me like some sacred Buckler, that had dropped from Heaven. But to Crown me with Divine Honours, I perceive, is not agreeable to your Customs; you therefore belch out your Reproaches against me, devote me to the shades, though every one of my Achievements speak me not so much a Man as a God; A Deity (I say) in regard I never had a repulse, nay Fortune herself, though obstinate, durst never contradict me.  
How often have I, undaunted, rendered myself obnoxious to certain Perils? and with an Invincible Courage, have (in spite of the Fates) restored the tottering, chance of War? That I have triumphed over that sickle Goddess, that I have trampled under feet the ravenous Destinies, and that I am the only Monarch of the Universe, the Gods and you do well enough understand; that Jupiter Hammon hath rewarded my Deserts with Immortality, and acknowledged me his Son, you sufficiently know, and 'tis needless to tell you; why do you not therefore, with bended knees, adore as a Deity my Divine Majesty? why do you not believe Hammon, whose credit to this very day remains inviolable? Do Oracles utter Lies? Do you think me unworthy of the Society of the Gods? What? have not my conquering Arms advanced me above the ordinary pitch of Mankind? Have they not made me equal to Hercules and Bacchus.  
Observe, (O ye ungrateful Macedonians!) Is it nothing that I have trodden so much snow, that I have passed over so many impetuous Rivers, and travelled over so many frozen mountains, which (if you believe Fame) have daunted Hercules, who had not Courage enough to attempt them? I forbear to mention Victories and Triumphs; I speak not of subdued Kingdoms and Empires, which were not so much as known by him, much less subverted by his prowess. I have razed Thebes without War or Blood, and my very Name hath struck such a Terror into Greece, that it offered me a golden Crown of Victory, and hath chosen me her Captain. My stupendous Glory will not be confined within the narrow limits of the Macedonian Kingdom, but revolving in my mind the whole Universe, to make way for my future greatness, I have landed a few men in Asia, and at Granicus have quelled my most dreadful Enemy with a great slaughter; have reduced Lydia, jonia, and Phrygia, and made them submit to my Power.  
Finally, having overcome and broken through all opposition, I came to Issus, where with repeated Victories, I discomfited Darius the Potent King of Persia with his numerous Army. Afterward it came into my mind, or I recounted how many slain I sent in one day to the shades below, insomuch that Charon confessed that his own boat was not sufficient, but that there was need of a whole navy of Ships for Transportation. And to omit my achievements at Tyre, and Arbela, and an infinite more in other places, I arrived a Conqueror at the Indian Ocean, and made that a bound both at once to my conquests and the whole world; and put to slight their wounded Elephants, and made King Parus my miserable Captive. Passing the River Tanais, I have destroyed the fierce Seythians with a great slaughter: and the rock Aornon, whose craggy difficulty forced Hercules from a siege, I alone have attempted, have climbed it and conquered, and have raised my Trophies and Eternal monuments beyond the bounds of Father Bacchus.  
Finally, returning from Memphis, the whole world being at Peace, I made mine address according to the Custom of my Country to the Oracle of Jupiter Hamon, where I was joyfully received, and with the gratulations of the whole company of Priests; nay, Jove himself, the Father both of Men and Gods, descended from his studded Throne of Emerald, and saluted me as I approached him; and after much compliment exchanged on both sides, He adopted me to be his Son, and commanded you to adore your King, and to worship him with Divine Honours.  
But you neither harken to his Commands, nor will believe that I am enroled among the Gods. And your Envy doth daily more increase against me, because I hate not Jove, by whose Oracle I am pronounced a God. Are the answers of the Deities in my Power? He proffered me the Name of a Son. I wish you would believe me a God, that so you might atone and appease the displeased Deities, and reward your King with Immortality and Glory; by whose warlike Prowess triumphant Greece hath been raised to the highest pitch of Felicity— But though now you think it much to bow your Heads to my Deity, yet I fancy when I shall be translated to Heaven you will not deny me Divine Honour, and as soon as you perceive your base Ingratitude, whom now you hate, being present with you, you will lament and grieve for, when I am snatched from you, and will perform due Honour, and Reverence to my Ghost and Ashes.   

DECLAM XXII.— For Fear of Death, 'Tis madness to resign our Breath.  
He is neither Patient nor Valiant, who amidst the Tumult and Fury of War, cares not to die by the Sword of his Enemy, but covets to fall by his own Hand, he is to himself an Enemy, and to his Enemy a Friend; he is kind to them, and to himself a Tyrant. If when prosperous success, shall crown our Endeavours, Life is so much esteemed midst the pomp of Victory, that there is scarce matter for our Triumph, or time to admire, or adore ourselves; Methinks 'tis strange, after one frown of Adverse Fortune, one blow of an incensed Enemy, so to be weary of our Breath, as not only to avoid and shun our Adversary, but to run from our lives as a more cruel Enemy.  
By doing thus, we both astonish Nature and Heaven too; who are not only Rebels to ourselves, but ingrateful to it, and are Usurpers too. For if we take away our lives with those darts, which Nature has given for the defence of them, we make her to act in vain, and violate the sacred Institutions, and Laws of the Destinies. 'Tis not Glory, nor Valour; Honour nor Prowess to yield to so easy a Death, and whilst we spill our Blood against the Deities not enough propitious, we seek to revenge ourselves of Heaven, and not of our Enemy. This Villainy, officious Fame will transmit to Posterity. Such a crime argues Degeneracy of Spirit; and 'tis not Valour but Fear overcomes us; so that our Bodies can hardly endure savage Tyranny, because our Souls are weak and stupid. Signal Valour must be as hard as Adamant, and have a Breast an Anvil to all miseries, which (like the invincible Palmtree) must triumphantly rise against all Pressures.  
Far be it that our Enemy should glory in our overthrow without a wound or conflict! Far be it that his Sword (like the Basilisk) should shoot forth Death on a mee● Spectator! Nothing can be desired worse than Death: but now if Death be a reward, we must break our way through our Enemy's Breasts, and because there is not room for Flight on Earth, we will pursue our Foe (as Brutus the Adulterer) to the Shades below. But perhaps he is not so furious as to be a Tormentor rather than a Commander: But if nothing can quench his thirst, but a draught of Blood, we must imitate the Example of the Roman Senate, not to desire Death, or fear it. When our Enemy's approach, having adorned ourselves with Pomp and Splendour, let us expire in state: And if we can suffer the Fatal stroke with an undaunted Spirit, let us not for shame be afraid of Enemy or Bondage, as if more cruel than Death. Let us not free ourselves from prison by our own wounds, we will not purchase so inglorious a Refuge at such a rate; nor so obscurely descend to the Ghosts below; we will rather wholly be involved in chains. A Soldier shall load our Ambitious hands with such Bracelets. 'Tis no disgrace for such great Bodies to be lead Captive. We are of more worth than to become a triumphant Feast for the Furies. We will not submit ourselves to a Martial, but bow our necks to a Marriage yoke, desiring to lie imprisoned in more noble Embraces. We blush not (being subdued) to be carried Appendages to the proud Chariot. We will not imitate Demosthenes, or Varus: Far be it from us to follow such degenerous Commanders. But thou Claesia! the wonder and glory of Rome: shalt be our pattern, we will cross (like thee) not only over Acheron, but our Country River. For amidst storms and tempestuous Troubles, Valour breaks forth with a brighter Lustre; so that if Heaven, Earth, and Air, should conspire against us, we will stand unaffrighted at such great ruin. Such Prowess if it cannot invite, yet shall scare our Enemies into Kindness and Clemency. If they will not commiserate our sad condition, let them be more sparing of their brandished weapons, But if they are ashamed to put them into a dry Scabbard, and have a mind to lodge their Artillery in the quiver of our pierced Breasts, let us fly enraged to the Infernal Lake, that not only our Foes, but Furies themselves may be struck with Fear and Consternation. What Immortal Glory will accrue by this? we are as Famous in our Death, as Valiant in our Life. And although we are dead, yet perpetual Trophies shall preserve us alive; and though no one will lament and bemoan our so unhappy Fate, yet Posterity will pay everlasting Homage and Eternal Veneration to our Tomb and Sepulchre.   

DECLAM. XXIII. 'Tis better to travel abroad, than to tarry at home.  
I Blush to see such a ring of Philosophers, and so many pale Students always plodding, and poring upon their Books. We ought surely to engage ourselves in a more profitable Employ, and not to be confined in a narrower Study, than the whole World. He is truly a Scholar, who is versed in the Volumn of the Universe, as who doth not so much read of Nature, as contemplate, and study Nature herself. Those are but low and mean Spirits, who breath at home, and cling so fast to their Native Soil. The Diviner Soul, mindful of its Extraction, and Birth above, imitates Heaven, and delights in motion. Behold the Stars, how they wheel about with unwearied Courses! How doth the Sea fluctuate with a restless wave? and (unless Copernicus had a whimsy) the Earth turns round, and is troubled with a Vertigo.  
And do we not yet travel? Behold the Aspect of every thing invites you abroad! especially that verdant Tempe, and the embroidered Elysium of the newborn Spring! And who is he, unless condemned to the settle in chimney corner, that will not run to the joyful Nativity of the Infant-year, and gratify his senses with the blooming Blandishments of the pleasant Fields? What disgrace doth attend the Household Deities? But if you take a voyage from home, here you are saluted with the proud height of Alps and Pyramids, there you meet with the prodigious Fabric of a burly Colosse; on this side a Landscape adorned with Cities, on that a Prospect shaded with Groves; one very side surrounded with new worlds, and encompassed with the Luxury of divers objects; so that your divided Senses turn doubtful Sceptricks, being distracted with the variety of fresh Spectacles, and register the remembrance of their past Pleasure. From whence proceed your Famous Wits? From whence arises Dignity, and Honour? Who was ever eminent or advanced from smoke? or who was ever made immortal by a Domestic Jove? with whom, whosoever through Sloth converses and dwells, the Glory of his Fame will daily fade, his Sanguine Cheerfulness will be Phlegin and Dulness, his brisker Heats will cool and die, his Vigour Faint, his Life is Death, and his Name buried in silence and oblivion.  
How many have there been (as experience tells us) who have come into the world dull, and stupid, and condemned by Nature to the profane Rabble, whom an ingenious search into Foreign Parts (Prometheus-like) hath animated and enlivened with new Fires, and hath (as it were) made and framed them of new mould, hath refined them into Stars, and made them glorious Luminaries to dispel the darkness of the cloudy Age? Again, how many are there of quicker parts, who though coaeval with Nestor within their private walls, yet have at length expired Fools and Idiots.  
And what? Do we not travel yet? Why are we enlightened with two eyes? Why are we forked, and branched into two legs? what did Nature mean to distinguish man into so many Senses, and almost crowned him with Immortality? Why did she fix the mountains, pour out the Sea? Why did she embellish and bespangle the world with such Starlike Spectacles? 'Tis strange! What was her intent? Far be it, that we should thus defraud our Nature and Genius, that such Divinity should lurk and be concealed in a Chimny-corner, and should die, and expire in a cloud of Smoke! Every thing in the world is an Emblem of Travel: For what else are the Motions of the Stars, the Flights of Clouds, the Career of the Sun, and the Course of the Moon, the Fall of Waters, the gliding of Rivers, the Frisking of Beasts and Swimming of Fishes, in woods and streams; I say, what else are all these, but representations of travel, and a waifaring Life? But to come a litter closer: seeing these kind Invitations do but little move you, we will slatter you into travel with more winning insinuations, and shall give you a Prospect of that pleasing Variety, of those ravishing Delights, which feed the Curiosity of an inquisitive Traveller; and they are such, which captivate the wand'ring Senses with such powerful charms, that whom they cannot persuade, by a gentle violence, they will draw abroad.  
Here (believe me) are to be seen such alluring objects, which will even tyre the multitudinous sight, and the visive faculty of all-eyed Argus; which once being veiwed, make us ready to wish to be perpetual Spectators with an alternate eye. There are odours which feed you with their breath: here dainties, which you cannot so much as look on with idle Lips, on every side do occur such potent delights, such prevalent entertainments, that a Sceptic cannot question their command they have over us.  
But now such is the unhappy condition of homebred Clowns, that nothing is the object of their Senses, but what is ordinary and familiar; They see nothing strange and rare; what they do to day, that they do to morrow, and every day; and what they see now, doth accur always; Let us not therefore, as if unlawful to exceed the bounds of our Native Soil, end our days on the same spot, whereon we began them, and so expect death under the same Climate, wherein we received our life. What matter is it what ground we tread? what Air we breath in, or in what Region we behold the Sun. That public Exchequer of Light doth scatter his Treasure to all alike; it every where glides the same Heaven; we are in all places refreshed by the same Air, and wheresoever our Souls are solicited and treated by new Spectacles, they can only discover divers Situations, but not another Earth: Let us not therefore, as if born and condemned to one corner of the Globe, breath our last, within the same walls we received our first; for he that lies hid at home does not live but is buried in his house, whose closet is his Sepulchre, upon which you may inscribe this Epitaph, (hic situs est) here he is laid. But (thou most noble Youth!) whom Arts have inspired with a freer Genius, who art as willing to traverse the world as well with thy feet, as to rove about it in thy active mind; Fly! Begun! thou canst not be safer in thine own house! Fancy the Universe to be thy Lycaeum, and the several Regions the Authentic manuscripts of the old stagyrite, all which having run over, thou wilt at length become a true stagyrite. Visit the amphibious Provinces of the Dutch Otters, those Citizens of the Sea, who are less acquainted with their own, than with other Nations, and who have a Country where they have no Land. Or if thou hadst rather, go see and consult the Britain's separated and divorced from the whole world, whom you will find encompassed with the embraces of the Sea, which is not so much their Prison as Defence, who are not its Captives, but Lords over it; For there is no tract of the Earth untrodden by the Britain, no creek of the Ocean, but he has sailed in it. There is nothing distant or hard to him; there is nothing, but what he hath either overcome or seen; hath measured by his travels, France, and Italy; Spain and Germany; Asia and Africa, and hath taken a journey to unknown Parts. Some have so curiously pried into the Northern Regions, as that they have left the Sun and Light behind them, and have followed so far the direction and conduct of the Polar-Star, till 'twas no longer their Guide, but a Companion in their Progress. Others not less scorched with heat, than these were benumbed with cold, have advanced so far into Southern Climates, as to have seen the chambers of the rising Sun, and viewed the cradle of the Infant-morn; where kinder Phoebus sheds not his rays on the Heavens only, but munificently gilds the Earth too, in whose bosom you may find mountains of gold without a fiction, and such heaps of jewels, which are only vile through their great Plenty. Let us not therefore always devote ourselves to the idle Muses, nor dote on the Sophisms of knotty Sciences; Let us not, cloistered in our Studies, perpetually be enslaved to the Liberal Arts; seeing the utmost pitch of our Endeavours and Sweat are subtle Niceties, empty Notions, solemn Trifles, and learned Nothings. Let us no longer so curiously search after their abstracted subtleties, nor hunt any more after their fugitive inventions; But laying aside all laborious contemplations, let us measure in our progress the dimensions of the globe! let us reach its bounds, and wander as far as the remotest Antipodes! let our eyes rove with their wanton glances, let our noses imbibe the fragrant breath of refreshing odours; and let us treat our palates with the magnificent Festivity of rich Viands! let the whole troop or brigade of our Senses travel; and we being surrounded with a guard of their pleasures, here let us view the sweet perfumes of Tmolus, there go see the scents of Thessalian Fields! Now let us go visit the golden strand of yellow Tagus, and the precious streams of rich Pactolus; anon enjoy the ravishing Felicities of happy Arabia, and the delicious Prodigality's of the luxurious Indies! nay, have at the wanton Treasures of the whole Universe, which if I should attempt to describe to you in bare words, 'twould be as great a Solecism, as to make an Oration to your eyes, or to declaim and harangue to your noses; I shall therefore wave the travel of our Senses, and shall omit that fertile pregnancy so big with Delights, which are wont to ravish those noble Sentinels of our Souls, I mean our Senses, whensoever they travel.  
And what do you say now? do these things speak but coldly? we will urge the matter home, and press it further. Go too! prepare yourselves, and behold the dangers of a domestic Education.  
What do men do within their private Habitations? they sit still; Oh sad! How often do we see those homebred Rustics buried in Sloth, and wallowing in Intemperance! How frequently drowned in a deluge of Liquors, who overwhelmed in Lethe, do breath out their immoderate Souls in a mortal dream! whereas the lively and moving Spirits, do by their Sobriety obtain of the Destinies a longer thread, who indulging their Senses a pleasant variety of grateful objects, become eminent and conspicuous, famous and illustrious, and (to speak more gloriously) mortal Deities, famous and conspicuous? why such you may find amongst the  Gods; For they have their wonders and spectacles worthy your sight; For what else are those luxurious spendthrifts, who make themselves old, even before their youth, who wast their Patrimony in unlawful loves, always quarrelling for new Misses; who in their Minority are ripe for Hell, and provoke and invite unwilling death before their time.  
Let us rejoice, and triumph! let us elevate our Spirits! Forsake the chimny-corner, abandon Sloth! let us rise, walk, and be travelling! Our will commands us; Pleasure desires us; our hands and feet importune us; at home dangers affright us, abroad spectacles invite us. Rejoice, and triumph!  
Hath nature chained us to one clod? Hath it condemned us to one corner? shall we lead our lives within the narrow precincts of a few miles? shall we grow old in the confines of one cottage? where we lived, shall we there die? I bear about me but six ounces of dust, which I own to our common mother (for the Chemistry of Cardan found no more in the ashes of a calcined body) and what matter is it, where my Tabernacle is dissolved, and where I pay so small a debt? at home through Luxury and delights we grow effeminate, and are melted and dissolved through domestic softness.  
Let us away then to the frozen pool; and let us admire orbicular surrounding amphitheatrical shadows of the remote Amphiscii! The acute Mathematicians measure the Earth with grains, and weigh it with ounces; they will tell you the number of the dust of the Earth, and compute the quantity of the drops of the Sea: the vastness of the former, and the wideness of the latter they will contract and crowd into the narrow compass of little maps; where the Turkish Empire is comprised in a blot, and the large Danow represented by the slenderness of a thin line. Would you hold and grasp Nature abridged in the compass of your hand? why Hondius hath framed most exactly such artificial worlds, that you may compass the Universe with the length of your fingers, and go beyond Drake with your extended Palm.  
But what do men at home? they drink and swill: Here the gluttony of Apicius, there the softness of Sardanapalus: here prodigal wretches consume and waste their dwindled Fortunes, there Gormondizers bury their Patrimonies in the gulf of Luxury; here beardless youth devoted to Bacchus, there riper age martyrs to Venus; some born in a richer dirt, and more prodigal soil, are enslaved to the Fortune of an uncertain die! others more covetous, and adoring gold, fleece the poor, and defraud the needy, and with winged speed, fly to the commission of all Evil.  
And do not all these things previal yet? behold the notable Example of great Alexander! from whence (most worthy Hero!) hadst thou thy wit and parts? what Pallas (as I may say) I want a word) did Parnassate thy Soul with such Learning and Virtue? what was it placed thee, being greater than all Encomium, and enroled thee among the Gods? did not thy viewing in travel, Cities and Countries? let me ask ye (O ye famous worthies, Hercules, Cato, Cicero, Plato and Caesar!) how did ye become so glorious? though you are dead, yet your Example speaks: 'twas your Familiarity with foreign Parts, that transmits' your renown to succeeding Ages. I could cite infinite others both of former and present times: but I cannot omit the never dying, or deathless memory of Queen Elizabeth, whose happy Virginity fruitful in Dominions (though not in Children) hath Christened Regions with her Name and Religion; hath planted Colonies in a new world, and hath removed England into the distant Continent. What shall I say of him, whom I will not call the Envy, but the wonder and amazement as well of Ancient as Modern Conquerors; who, Companion to the Sun, hath compassed the world with that daily traveller; who hath laid open and discovered the hinges of the Universe, and to whom we are so much indebted for the knowledge of Nature, as to the famous Stagyrite, its chiefest Secretary.  
But to conclude, and that our Oration need not want authority, behold! it boasts of Kings and Nobles; amongst whom let us fix upon our Famous Charles of blessed memory, who was both a Guide and Example to foreign travel, who though much admired by his own Country, yet returned more conspicuous by his Spanish Accomplishments, and Foreign Acquilitions.   

DECLAM. XXIV. Against travelling abroad, etc.  
THere is nothing which we cannot both sooner and safer acquire by the motion of our eye at home, than by the weary steps of our feet abroad. How many rare ingenious persons hath a foreign Sky unhappily transformed into beastly monster? They have returned only with humane aspect, and like the Olympic Joves mentioned in the Poet, have appeared glorious with their golden heads, but are mean and fordid with their dirty bodies; like Colossaean Images they ravish without with the pleasant Hypocrisy of charming colours, but within terrify and affright with the ugly shape of an Ape or Serpent. They are more nice and effeminate than Sardanapalus, who are softened by Venery into putrefaction; whose excess and debauchery hath non-plussed Bacchus, and hath drank dry even the God of Tipple. There is no unheard of Villainy, which they have not either done or thought of. Behold! what aching heads? what swollen, puffed up, Boreas-like, cheeks! what dull and heavy eyes! what tottering feet! how often do they disgorge up their Souls amidst their intemperate cups? and are buried with the Solemnities of drunken Bromius? 'Twas travel that brought us this vice, and the Dutch good-fellowship hath taught us Drunkenness.  
Whence comes it that our Femasculine Matrons, our English Sirens are so ingenuous for Pride, who place not an hair without advice, but call a Court for the disposing of every lock, who dispense not a nod without Counsel, whose eyes glance not without an Edict, and whose feet do move in exact measure. How do they counterfeit Nature; who so drench their looks in oils, and washings, that they lose their faces and complexions in their galley-pots; they so glitter in their filks, and are so critically attired in so exact a dress, as if they would break the eyes of every Spectator. From whence such petulant, and sparkling eyes? Certainly Pride taught this vice of travelling, and we may thank haughty Italy for these prodigies and crimes against Nature. How often do we feel France in our bones? and how often find Paris on our bodies, which sometimes doth oppress with a fashion, and sometimes punish.  
Let every one breath in the Air, wherein he was born! and let him not with weary steps seek those things under another Sun, which he enjoys under his own! our Lares tell us there is nothing more pernicious to good manners, than distant visits of foreign Cities: there is none but brings home or commends some vice or other. Ambassadors seldom return with the same humours they exported abroad; they barter fashions, and are laden home with exotic customs. Cato and Laelius can scarce keep themselves from being corrupted and debauched; against whom the most ununiform rabble have prepared Circaean cups to extoxicate them.  
A just man, tenax propositi, worships and adores his domestic Joves; and, if we are wise, let us love, our Muses, and go no further than this our Parnassus! 'tis wisdom to keep in our present Mansion: for what is more unworthy a prudent man than to endure patiently the dust and Sun, for many years in the acquisition of that, which one single Paragraph, one single Page will teach him in one hour.  
The Schools are open, and Library public: here you read with tears of the rubbish and ashes of ruined Troy, of Priamus wanting a funeral Pile. Here you may read in classic History of Mausolaums and Pyramids; of Colossus, and Hercules Pillars, and whatsoever is celebrated by the voice of Fame.    

THE Second Part.  

DECLAM. I. Whether Virtues are implanted in man by Nature? Affirmed.  
WHen we wander with our eyes through the dubious varieties of distracting Nature, and when we behold the roof of the world so richly bespangled with posies of Stars, that flame above, and the floor of the same, so luxuriously decked with Asterisms of Flowers that twinkle beneath, or when we see as it were the flowery Pavement of Heaven bestrewed with Stars, and the Starry Firmament of the Earth studded with Flowers, when we view the Universe on this side bright, and arrayed in Flame; on that side dark, and veiled with Shade; here gilded with the radiancy of a glorious Sun; there ●ullied with the horror of an Eclipsing Cloud; I say when we have a Prospect of these things, nothing is the object of our sight, but wonders, and such prodigies that surpass all humane Invention. And as we admire the Landscape of the bigger world, so are we stricken with an equal amazement at the sight of the less, I mean the stupendous Fabric of mortal man. See! with what a lofty Person and Majestic Stature doth he shoot upward, whereas grovelling Animals are prone downwards! what Skill and Mechanism doth his very Model declare? what excellent contrivance is legible in his contexture? what curiosity of Art doth the least Atom boast! with what a grace doth Beauty, that Empress of his forehead, command and sway? how are his cheeks inflamed with the blushing Oriency of a purple die? What sparklings in his eyes! what roses in his lips! what driven Snow adorns his neck? what comeliness and feature lie scattered midst the excellent proportions of every Limb? Lastly, what rays of Divinity do shine from his head?  
If we contemplate the Elegancy of this Fabric, and the most accurate Industry of Nature in this Structure; if we consider the Pillan of this Royal Palace, and the Butteresses that support the vast bulk of this proud Edefice if we observe the Courts without and the Closets within, the perplexed Labyrinths and intricate Mazes of winding Arteries, and th● marvellous Luxuriency into sprouting nerves when we reflect (I say) on these things we must needs be astonished, and cannot but exclaim with Zoroaster of old, O man the Miracle of daring Nature! Admiration it sel● is delighted with this Spectacle, and Nature herself is intoxicated with her own work.  
And as she hath blest the Body with such excellencies, so might she have furnished the Soul with the like Endowments, in respect of whom, Heaven itself is worthless, and to whom the whole world gives place, and veils its bonnet: but the Immortal Gods have denied Nature so great a Boon, lest too impudently she should boast that she is born a Goddess. If such a constellation of Virtues should club at the Nativity of a poor Mortal, certainly Man must be reckoned, if not in the same rank with, yet in the next form to the Eternal Deities, from whom they differ (according to Pliny) in Immortality only.  
But however, let us not vilify and disparage the gifts of Nature, who hath been very bountiful and obliging to us; the hath instilled into us the Principles of Goodness, and hath put it into our power (if we will) to be Virtuous. The Callous Farmer ploughs up a grave in his Mother Earth, and buries his Corn in the Bowels of our common Parent; but if the ingrateful Soil shall devour the Seed, and deny a Resurrection, or an expected Harvest, the fault is not in the Husbandman, but in the barren ground. Nature hath scattered in us seeds of Virtues, but if there shall follow no crop 'tis not Nature, but we are unprofitable. But if it had pleased the Immortal Gods to have crowned men with Virtue, without Labour, than there had been reason why Nature should be blamed, and not man, and we might have justly complained, that she is so cruel a Stepmother as to bring us into the world polluted with Vice and utterly destitute of all Virtue; but seeing Heaven sells all things to Mortals for Sweat and Labour, and Virtues are the products of Study and Industry, and not the 〈◊〉 of mere Nature: men have no reason 〈…〉 that she is so hard and cruel. In all 〈◊〉 there are some glimmering hopes, which ●●●ing they die with age, it is manifest therefore Nature was not defective, but that care was wanting. Let us not accuse Nature of Impotency, who though pregnant with Virtue, yet brings it not forth, for that is beyond her Strength and Power, nor (which is a more just complaint) let us indict her of Impiety, who is always a cherisher of Mankind.  
'Tis true, one man excels another in the acuteness of his Faculties, yet our common Parent hath not so disinherited any man of Ingenuity, as to leave him destiture of all inward Accomplishments. Some she hath produced ripe for knowledge, who (Papirius like) are capable in minority of Court Employments; but others must be anvilled, and as it were be manufactured by Discipline to be made fit for Improvements. She hath not (as the Stoics fond dream) so cleared the passage to Virtue, as that a man may arrive to it without Labour. Some certain colours a fleece easily imbibes, others (unless incorporated as it were into its very substance) it will hardly receive; thus humane Souls sometimes unfledged, and in their Infancy, hasten to be endowed with Maxims of Prudence, and sometimes arrive to Dotage before they can attain to Knowledge. An happy Education, and early Instruction will much conduce to the fashioning of our Manners, and the morning of our days blushing with the tincture of wise Precepts, will have a good insluence in the ordering our Conversation, for they sooner reach the top, who sweeting in the ascent, are elevated by the strength of supporting hands; But however, the way that leads to Wisdom and Virtue, is not blocked up from any man; besides, that Power of working, which Nature hath implanted in every man, like an indulgent Parent, she hath blessed Mortals with another Faculty, which disposes to the Exertion of that Power, which some call Potentia secunda; but I rather name it an Inclination or Genius; for we usually say that every man of his own Nature and Genius is prone and hath a propensity to this or that. Such Dispositions and Genius's are inbred in us, but lame and imperfect, yet so, as that by Execise and Industry they may be much improved; Nature hath not prescribed such narrow limits to man's advancement, but that he may rise from one degree of Eminency and be installed in another, so that a common Soldier may have the preferment of a General, and private men may soar to the Dignity of Kings and Emperors; thus the Soul is not confined within such straight bounds, as to remain always the same she is by Nature, but may refine her Being, and enlarge herself by Study and Industry. The Genius therefore, and disposition of every man must be tenderly cherished, and be cultivated by Art, that Virtue may blossom from the first Principles, and Elements of Nature. A Soldier armed with Courage, and actuated with the Spirit of Valour and Gallantry, whose undaunted Breast knows no retreat, if his stout Bravery be sharpened by conflicts, and is daily conversant in the storms of War, he must needs be Victorious, and a man of conduct, he must needs understand the Stratagems of his Adversary, and at his Pleasure returns with Spills from his Enemy; but if at the sight of Battalions, his Magnimity shall dwindle into Sloth and Cowardice, he adorns his Flight, but not the War; and destroys with fear the natural briskness of his steely temper, which Labour and Hardship had fermented into Stoutness and Heroic Resolution. Thus the seeds and sparks of Virtue that lie buried in our Souls, unless actuated and enlivened by Study and Industry, will certainly whither and vanish into nothing; but if manured by Labour they will daily sprout and shoot up into maturity. Though Virtue receive some imperfect blushes and hints from Nature, yet 'tis perfected by Documents, and sage Instructions. All our Counsels and Endeavours tend only to repair the ruins of Nature, all Art and Discipline would supply its defects; for Instructions would be superfluous, if Nature were sufficient. Dust and Sun are the forerunners, and the Preface to the Palm of Victory. The best things are besieged with the greatest difficulties, and as not Riches, so neither do Virtues pop upon the Slothful and Idle. They grow on a Precipice, and whosoever will gather them, with much Sweat and Panting must reach after them.   

DECLAM. II. Whether Nobility is Natural or Hereditary, and propagated by Traduction to Posterity? Denied.  
WHat? honour a native ornament? I pray tell me, what have Mortals e'er received from Nature besides to Live and to Die? 'Tis true, she hath given them a ductile Being, to be spun and wiredrawn into a few years, hath granted them a little dawning and morn of Life, but (alas!) it will quickly determine in a twilight, and night of Death. What? do our Peers own their Titles to Nativities, and their Badges to the Midwifery of a  woman? can sacred Purple, the ensign of their Honour, be fitted and adapted to a poor Infant? is it enough to ennoble one to have been born into the world, to have cried, and to have seen one day? what therefore doth it avail a man to o'errun the world, and to measure it with the Geography of his Arms and Triumphs, and to pant and breathe out his great Soul midst the thickest of his Enemies, if Nobility be natural, and not to be ascribed to the merits of Virtue? as if Alexander was not honourable enough by his universal Conquest without being the Brat of his fire Philip; and as if it was more credit to Hereules to be Jupiter's Bastard, and to be the offspring of the womb of impure Alemena, than to have underwent such famous and renowned Labours.  
Why such diligence in the tedious exercise of severe Virtue? why such waiting and attendance on the pale Muses? who will not laugh at Cato's Stoicism, at the lamp of Epicietus? who will not deride the whole learned world, is Nobility sprung from Nature? and is not the Product of Wit, of Parts, of Virtue and good manners? let a man's conversation be Vicious and his life profligate; let his Intellectuals be stupid even to a Prodigy and a Proverb; let nothing be handsome and comely in his Body; nothing Mercurial, and airy in his Soul, yet Nobility shall be listed among crimes, where to live and to be, is enough to dub one honourable without conversation and living well; where Extraction, and not Learning; where Blood, and not Virtue, creates a Gentleman.  
But what is this Gentile Blood? tell me I pray you, whose Ancestors are supposed to have instilled into your veins a more noble gore. All Blood is of the same colour; and if some doth boast a purer die, 'tis not Nobility but Health and Constitution that gave the tincture. The Physician in Phlebotomy cannot distinguish betwixt the Generous Stream, and the Plebeian Flood. What? Is the Blood a juice of an higher rank? and are the other Humours inferior and common? why do you not esteem ingenious Melancholy? Martial Choler, and light Phlegm? If Honour is in the Blood, what is more refined than the Liquor that flows in vulgar veins? on whose skins dwells the whiteness of driven Snow, on whose cheeks sits the Vermilion of a modest blush, and through whose whole bodies is spread a Sanguine Complexion. In the Field of Mars, the King and the Subject, the General and common Soldier fall with an equal Fate, but with different Glory, shall I think the latter spilt more ignoble Blood for his Country, than did the former? he is a wretch, who esteems not the least ounce as dear to himself, as doth the great Caesar.  
But admit, that Nobility doth lodge in the Blood, yet it is but a little that flows within the narrow channels of our Veins and Arteries. But this Gentile Pleurisy seems at length to sink, and what? is there any thing besides Blood and Spirit that can conduce to Nobility? not Illustrious Titles, which are easily comprised in a few letters, and can soon be pronounced by a little breath; not much money, for he is not Eques, whosoever is Auratus; not magnificent Structures, for we are covered with the roof of Heaven and with infinite Stars; nor the tedious Genealogy of an ancient Family; For trace thy Pedigree beyond Ducaleon and the Arcades, and take in the Aristotelean Eternity of the world to boot, proceed ad infinitum in the Series of thy Ancestry, at length thine antiquated and obsolete Nobility will be drained to its dregs and to the least drop of Gentile Blood. An ingenuous Nature is ashamed to rake for Honour in the Urns and Ashes of his Forefathers. 'Twas not Hereditary Dignity of his Stock and Lineage that adorned Tully; he risen from nothing, whom if any should disenrol from the list of Heroes, he deserves not only the Fury of my Speech, but the Satyrs and Scorpions of his Roman Eloquence.  
What a small matter is it to be born of Nobles? worms and flies, the vilest Infects, that are either the errors or spot of wanton Nature, claim an Alliance to the glorious Heavens, and derive their Pedigree from the Sun and Stars. Nobility streaming to a long Posterity (like waters, wand'ring too far from their Source) degenerate from the worth of their famous Ancestors, do (as it were) fall quite from the purity of their Crystal Spring.  
But whom, do you think, I esteem Noble? certainly him that is ingenuously born, and as ingenuously bred, that is tinctured with Learning, and tempered with Virtue: him, who is the golden boy of smiling Fortune, that widely differs from the bragging rabble, which by no other title can pretend to Nobility, quam Natura Coccino et Castoreo.   

DECLAM. III. Whether to live with a Friend is a thing much to be desired? No.  
BE gone (O my Friends) I desire not so much your sight as absence, and had rather enjoy your room than company. I am willing sometimes to be divorced from you, neither do I covet always to live with you; for friendship that is always conversant in my presence becomes almost hatred, grows slender, disdainful, and is very haughty. You cannot be ignorant, what Flames of contention are usually kindled, and attend that Amity, which is supported and maintained by mutual aspect, and how often 'tis offended with trivial things. Those whom we have passionately loved, and whose sweet Society have importunately desired, as not only Friends but Brothers and Children, and (if there be any thing more dear) the very Deity itself of Friendship, even these (I say) we wish to be absent, if they hinder our Studies and obstruct our business; O what fervent Zeal is there to be found in Love? what jars in Wedlock! what sighs and tears, what complaints and suspicions 'twixt jealous Paramours! what civil Wars, I will not say betwixt Masters and Servants, betwixt Brothers and Sisters, Children and Parents, Parents and Children! what Indignation is stirred in them against their Offspring, who whilst they desire to be good, look on them as bad; and so do as it were after a manner hate them, whilst they do most affectionately love them. Come we now to the sacred name of Friendship, which being derived from Love cannot be conceived to exist or be without that Passion. But what difference in the lives and actions of Friends though they agree in their Ends? how do they clash in their Opinions, Advices, and Counsels! what conflicts about Religion and sacred things? whereas in absence no contests and bicker, no gall and bitterness, nothing pungent and afflicting, besides desires, and yet these long have a relish of Sweetness and Delight.  
Tell me (O my Pamphilus) why amongst the many wishes of men, the chiefest of their desires is the fruition of their Friend, why do they covet his Society under the same roof? is it because distance of place makes Friendship languish and is remoteness the bane of all Fidelity? doth the aspect of thy Friend shed● complacency and a quietness into thy Soul? and art thou but half thyself in his absence? but if a Friend may be possessed not only naturally, but civilly too; how can absence hinder him from sitting and walking, from railing and jesting, from seriously discoursing and conversing with thee? sometimes a Friend is not discerned, but when he is absent. A glu● of Friendship is nauseous and insipid, but a● appetite after it gives a relish to its taste; wherefore if the great Masters of Love prescribe an intermission of enjoyment as very expedient for Paramours, whose whole pleasure is in presence, why is not an interregnun of fruition as convenient for Friends, in whose Virtue all delight is placed, and is not any way incommoded by absence, in regard it is every where present. I know not whether Epicurus was at Athens, or else where, when writing to his Friend, he bid him do all things as if Epicurus saw him. But certainly Annaeus was in Campania, when speaking to his Lucilius, living in Sicily by letters, he exhorts him to study, sup, and to walk with him, which things he could not perform, unless he act them on the Scene of Fancy without the help and ministry of Corporal Organs. But perhaps thine eyes anxiously desire thy Friend when absent: 'tis true, somewhat is withdrawn from thy sight by absence, but nothing from thy mind; no nor from thine eyes neither, if it be a true, firm, and well established Union.  
For Cicero in an Epistle to his Friend Balbus sighting in France under the Command of Caesar, tells us that he saw him not only in his mind, but with his eyes too; which if it be so, tell me (my good Fellow!) why canst thou not both hear thine absent Friend and see him too? unless your sight is more quick and ready at a lascivious cast, than at a Virtuous glance, and you esteem sound more honourable, than chaste Love, which no distance or force can obstruct or hinder— If we should behold nothing, but what is directly before us and confronts our sight, and only present objects should delight and please us, than our vision must needs be narrow, and all our Enjoiments very scanty; then farewell all joys of mental operations, and the complacency that we find in severe Speculations.  
Do not therefore rack thyself with the thoughts of thine absend Friend! do not resent his departure heinously! he that hath learned to bear the death of his Friend, will never be concerned, or flinch at his absence. If thou only considerest of this in Friendship, that its Foundation is perpetual, firm and stable, than Death itself can take nothing from thee. Hast thou never heard how Laelius in Tully comforted himself? how doth his dear Scipir live with him? how doth the Fame and Virtue of his deceased Friend survive and flourish, and shall never be blotted out of the register of his memory? do not therefore yield to thy desires, but embrace thy Friend in Idea and Contemplation, whom neither Death nor Absence can take from thee! lament not the departure of thy sweet Associate; for this bitter absence will sweerens, and render more Inscious his desired presence.   

DECLAM. iv Whether Friendship is the burden of Virtue? No.  
I Cannot think Love to be so degenerous a Passion as to spring only from servile Blood. What are those Friendships and Caresses, those delicate Blandishments and soft Sport? what are those chaste Graces, facetious Delights, and pleasant hours it usually affords? I'll be hanged if Love be nothing but a sweet Servitude. What Dialogues and Embraces? what Gifts and presents? what acceptable Pledges of reciprocal Affections? and what? are all these only the mutual offices of Bondage and Slavery? certainly we rather may exclaim, O the delicious tenor of a joyful Life! O infinite Bliss and Happiness! I should be apt to think Jove himself Hypochondriack and Melancholy, and not sufficiently happy in his ravishing Elysium, if he should always be contemplative, and not sometimes recreate himself and dally in the Society of Gods and Goddesses. The most affectionate breasts of the most Amorous Turtles do sometimes boil and ferment with anger, and are infested with the storms of unkind Brawls. The Crystal Serenity of the smiling Heavens is darkened with the tears of a frowning Sky; and the brightness of the Sun is benighted with the horror of obscuring Clouds: thus Friendship may be eclipsed, but not extinguished, may sink into a swoon and fall away, but not quite into an Apostasy and utterly die. He is a most delicate Lover, who cannot endure the froth of raging Language, which when the estuation of the blood grows calm, and abates, vanisheth with the choler that first caused it. The commands of my Friend I obey, his advice I follow, his persuasions I yield to, his affections I prove, his jests I laugh at, and care not a fig for his anger, and yet I do nothing whereby I may be thought to serve him, but rather to love him; nothing by the Fatal necessity and constraint of bondage, but by Friendly Counsel, and the sweetest Sympathy of most obliging Lovers. I fear not the frowns of the angry Heavens, not a deluge of waters, nor Hurricans of winds, no nor death itself, if Friendship require it: for to love is so far from being base and servile, that it is a thing most excellent, generous and noble. It is but a small matter to breath out ones Soul (that indivisible Particle of Divinity and little gasp of vital Air) and to shed a few ounces of Blood in the behalf of a man's Friend: in the mean time let the Envious wretch be racked and tortured, till he sob from his Skeleton his blue Ghost, scarce worthy of these shades to which 'tis damned; I say, let him smart with anguish, to whom to love, is not so much a slavery as a torment, pain and misery! let proud Mortals swell with loftiness, let them huff and be supercilious, who trample on all that are beneath their Orb, and with whom to love is mean and sordid! let the morose Anchoret be eternally damned to the solitude of his Cell, to whom Friendship is not servile but superfluous, and who thinks to love is the only property of wanton women.   

DECLAM. V Whether we may guests at a Man's Manners by his garb and habit?  
Farewell all joys! and whatsoever pleasures the Soul found in secrets, be gone and vanish! for our privacies now are prostitute and common, and those things which were only manifest to Mathematicians and Astrologers, are now published to every one by informing gestures, and the Rabble may be now of our Privy Counsel. Every limb is become vocal, and not only false construction and incongruity of words, but a Solecism in our clothes is to be feared too. O vain and foolish dread! doth Nature so despise her work, as that when she gave men Malice, she would not give them a secret too? and seeing she hath made our Errors natural, and imposed upon us a necessity of offending, what? doth she so much imitate Juno's Tyranny, as to commit us to the rout, more glazed with eyes than centocular Argus? Certainly she consults better the good of Mankind, and hath not so far gratified Momus in his design, as that whatsoever is transacted in the inmost recesses and retirements of the Soul, should be publicly legible on the frontispeice of the Face. I appeal to the delicate and soft Alcibiades of this age, whose smother brow, and unruffled aspect, the learned civility of whose clothes and garments, have always pleaded for the tumults of the mind, and for the unruly crowd of their impetuous affections. I should ascribe his faults to the necessity of Fate, who discovers them to the world by his gate and mien. Let every man choose what gestures he please to be his Advocate; and there is scarce any one so wretchedly guilty, as to want the defence, and Apology of his Body. The Elegance of Greece hath commended the ruder Barbarisms of monstrous Africa; and seeing various humours are oftentimes couched, and lie hid under the same shape and visage, the Judgement of Spectators must needs be uncertain, and the Station of Spies be treacherous and deceitful. How have the Fires of Love raged and preyed on men's breasts within, and yet that burning Aetna hath made no change or breach on the face without; so that Cupid's flames (like subtle lightning) have dissolved the mettle and hath left the Scabbard whole and inviolable! how often hath the wantonness of Venus been sporting in the veins, when the Severity of Mars hath sat on the brow, whose objurgatory looks have been so tetrical, as that they personate Cato, though Maudlin drunk. Those excellent Creatures, which (like so many Pictures) Nature hath drawn for the diversion of Man, that ugly Viper hath animated them to their ruin, and those charms, that flatter into expectation of a delicate Helen, cheats with the enjoyment of a lewd Lucretia.  
Who would expect such rare jewels from Aesop or a Gold-finder? or who looks for Majesty from Vespasium? they vizard themselves in countenances unlike themselves, so that you discover, or read nothing in the face but what is vulgar; for their Souls not regarding the Nobility of their Extraction, dwell in counterfeit Mansions below their Dignity, as Galba's Ingenuity had but a bad lodging. The Soul doth so withdraw itself from the sight of men, and enjoys the secrecy of so private a retirement, as that no wit can torture it into the confession of its Nature, which is a mystery, and a riddle that lies hid from all Men. What therefore? is it condemned to solitude! should it never lay open, and display itself; there have been gestures, and postures of Body, whereby the mind was wont (as it were) to speak and to show itself, and to shine (as it were) with certain rays, and to render itself conspicuous to the eyes of others: But (O sad!) they were all so counterfeit and feigned, that after the disguises of such fictitious looks, and so many vizors of lying aspects, who but a Priamus, or a man prodigal of his Faith can believe any more? one acts a Mimic, another a Player. All men imitate and personate all things; and those gestures which were only promoted by Natures dictates, are now inculcated, and taught by the rules of Art. We have proved ourselves the genuine offspring of our true Father, and are capable of a Metamorphosis; so that if an Alemena be to be won, we are presently Amphitruoed, who cannot imitate a Philosopher in the words of Hercules? who cannot make his breast as  as a Rock? and his Soul as Stoical as any Picture? What Socratic Catamite, and filthy Miscreant cannot blush at the name of fulsome Vice? and cannot devoutly defend the cause of distressed and exiled Virtue, so as to be thought a cherisher and patron of Goodness; and not only the charms and beauty of lovely Virtue, and the calmer smoothness of gentle Manners, but (like turning Scenes) can represent the deformities of ugly Vice, and the rougher turbulencies of unruly Affections; can at their pleasure be transported with Love or Anger, Joy or Hatred, and whatsoever Passions are created by Nature, the same they can personate and feign by Flattery. How often do we meet with humble Servants, and yet the number of our Family is not yet increased? how do they invade us with insinuations of sapple cringes, with elaborate Phrase, and with the protestations of almost a swearing countenance, so that nothing less can be expected than a transfusion of themselvees into our very bosoms, and a close mixture and marriage of our Souls. Behold the Parasite! how he struts abroad! who being well furnished with his garbs, exposes to sale his various postures, and with some importunity demands what is't you'd have? If his Friend weep, he sheds a tear; if he says he is hot, he presently sweats; he mingles his smiles with his laughter, and trembles and shakes with his fears. Not the twins of Hypocrates are more alike. They are always moved by the same Passions, and (like certain jewels) oftentimes languish with each others disease. They are sick and well in the jucture. He is very obsequious to every nod, and reflects (like a looking glass) and represents to thee the image of thine own self. Thus his tears stand Centinel, and his gestures (if commanded) are ready upon the guard to make a Sally. Perhaps in minority, when the Soul lived under a Democracie of Passions, nor had sworn allegiance to the Government of Reason, then restless commotions and an inundation of Licentiousness overflowed all things; But now Reason is in the throne, and hath obtained the Empire, such Liberty and Exorbitance will soon vanish; the Affections are subdued, and Nature herself is almost become a trophy; both looks and gestures are charmed to a compliance with all occasions; neither can we sooner be transformed by Circe, than by Reason. Whatsoever whirlwinds do bluster in the Soul, whatsoever storms do roar, yet the mouth breathes a Zephyrus and softer gales, and if reason require it, an enraged Soul will not so much even as threaten a damage. I appeal to those unhappy wretches, whom the pleasant cruelty of their Prince (like the dangerous calm of a flattering Sea) as often as it would involve the miserable in destruction, compels the unhappy to feign themselves blessed, and to hid the clowdiness of their Souls and their sorrows within, with serenity of their aspects and joy without. Thus sick and sad, as if they had eaten Sardoan roots, they laugh on the confines and threshold of death; and so every man defends himself by the conspiracy of his countenance, and at Rome they own to their faces their life and safety.  
'Tis happily contrived by Nature, that the whole bulk of our affections can be suppressed by reason, that we can check them when we please, and sometimes (as we list) may loosen their reins; and may restrain some within the limits of our breast, and discover those on our foreheads, which the occasion shall require. If we should commit ourselves wholly to their guidance, and altogether be obedient to their commands, into what Precipices would they hurl us: they would certainly betray us into all dangers, and whilst they furiously rage like so many Aeoli (those Subjects of the air) they would utterly take from us the Sea and the Earth, nay and Heaven too. But the delicate Matrons of this age have prudently been ware of this Evil, who call a Committee about the accurate disposing of each single hair, and dispense not a nod without Counsel, they suffer not the petulancy of a rolling eye, unless made authentic and warranted by a public Edict; nor do they budge a foot without meascure; they sergeant Nature, and are so besmeared and plastered with Ointment and Pomatum, that the face seeks for itself and cannot find it. Let them be guilty of what fault they will, I am sure they grow not pale at any crime; but are fortified (as it were) with a brazen wall, and remain imperious even to the eyes of Linx.  
Neither is the passage more easy into a Courtier's breast, who doth so wholly devote himself to the humour of the times, as that he almost forgets his proper Genius: 'tis not Nature and Inclination but Custom that suggests his apparel and gesture; both Tyrium and Trojan are clad alike without any distinction, and when they walk they move so with the same Soul, that you would think them poppets. But there is a vain sort of men of a severe brow, who condemn these persons of Folly, and brand the whole Court with the same Infamy; and indeed justly, if we lived in Plato's Commonwealth, or under Utopian Government; But we must consult, the age, and our present customs. No man safely strives against the stream, and he doth too haughtily despise the present times, who scruples with a blush, and is ashamed to be mad. He may departed the world, whose Virtues would keep him from its Customs and Fashions.  
Who will hereafter declare his guess? who will suffer his Judgement to be deceived again? now dissimulation triumphs, and hath conquered and possesseth the whole world. Now every one counterfeits what gesture he pleases, every one wears what habit he will, and there are many ignorant Souls in a learned habit, and many (as I may say) ungownd minds in that long robe. Who will not therefore always confess his ignorance? who will not blush to own that he knows any thing? by a certain Law we know not these things, and seeing we are forbidden by Nature to understand, 'tis not so much our crime to be ignorant as 'tis our duty; neither is it so much obedience, as necessity.   

DECLAM. VI Whether Aristotle did well in censuring that saying of Bias the Philosopher [Love as if you was about to Hate] No.  
IF the Friendship of the Peripatetics was as safe and secure, as 'tis pleasant and delightful, I am persuaded 'twould be as much in public like other Virtues, as 'tis now private and solitary; for what Felicity doth it create to humane Souls? behold! the same desires and humours do lodge only in different breasts! an accessary Consciousness to every secret, and dialogues interwoven with mingled Souls, do ravish and delight with such bewitching transports, as that not only the weak and silly, but even men prudent and severe are captivated by its charm.  
But there are so many coverts and retirements in humane breasts, and 'tis so unsafe a thing to confide in any man, that I know not whether the Friendship of Aristotle, consisting of the innocent simplicity of a mutual Passion, and of an universal exchange of all Affections, I say I know not whether 'tis rather an Infirmity, than a Virtue, and not so much our comfort as our ruin; for we that live in Tiberius' days must christian dissimulation with the name of Virtue, and so to act the parts of Friendship, as not utterly to forget our Prudence. For there are some that have a subtle knack in counterfeiting Vice and feigning Virtue, that have a disposition changeable into every Affection, and smoothly sliding into the Souls of men, endeavour to pry out and find their guilt; and in this they abuse the name of Friendship, that they are always feared, but never loved.  
There are others, who are never more to be dreaded, than when they laugh, who never lay aside the disguise of Severity, but when 'tis expedient; whose cloudy brows never clear up into a serenity of smiles, unless they can gain by such calm Sunshine; wherefore least our Innocency should be trapped in such snares, it may be very convenient to think of a storm in the midst of a calm, and to embrace the advice of the sage Philosopher, who bids us [Love so as if we were about to Hate] men slowly complain of those things, which have befallen them through their own default, and Folly is attended with this evil, it always upbraids; therefore lest Temerity with its [I had not thought] should rather be a Torment, than an Enjoiment, and more grieve than comfort us; I fancy it the wisest, and the safest piece of Dotage so to temper our Love, as to savour more of Judgement, than Affection, and so to deal and canton our persons to others, as to reserve a portion for our own selves, whether we consider men themselves, or the danger of the thing itself. 'Tis scarce so pleasant to find a Friend, as 'tis miserable to be deceived in him. If we contemplate the several ages of men, we shall find that Minority and Rawness excludes Children from the Solemnity of so sacred a league, and not so much Peevishness and Morosity, as Covetousness debars and keeps off the Aged; they mind nothing but wealth, they negotiate in Friendship and gain by their traffic, and love not any man, but when it costs them nothing. I would willingly admit men into the most inward retirements and recesses of Friendship, if they would either love more or be less wise; for as Affection abates as the Judgement increases, thus youthful heats cool at maturity; and though the fervour and violence of their Passions suffer young men to enter into the embraces of Friendship, yet heady Rashness and an unweary dispensation of their Affections, will drive them from those sacred ●les, and things acted with heat and violence are not so firm and stable, as those, that are done with deliberation of a mature Judgement: Juvenile Affections have shorter periods, whose impetuous boilings will easily ferment themselves into a sudden calm; they are for the most part charmed with the likeness of Pleasures, and are rather jocund among themselves than passionate, as Geminus and Sejanus were mutual Friends in Luxury and Softness.  
Thus are men's ages besieged on all sides with these difficulties, and if we shall further consider the manners of men, which they have framed to themselves, we shall easily perceive there is a great necessity of believing ourselves, and of not confiding in any body else.  
The first sort of men that occur are those, who as oft as we meet with them, rise up upon their legs, and by the pleasantness of their gestures are dissolved and melted almost into kisses and embraces; they are ready to skip out of themselves, neither complain they of Injuries received from those they love. Nothing fitter for Society, than these men, if we were born for nothing, but to sleep and revel. They have somewhat of a jovial Gaiety, an allowable Innocence in him, who is permitted either to play the fool, or madman; for he must be either the one or the other, who doth so lavishly congratulate, and is so profuse in his fawn.  
But there are others in the second place, who have more sober Affections, and have a kindness for all, proportioning themselves to every one by weight and measure: their discourse is obliging, and their deportment insinuating, neither their aspect Satyrical, nor language severe; they speak Panegyrics, and dare not discharge a jest even against the most enormous crime. Nothing fitter for civilities than such Natures, they are obsequious to every man, and being averse to quarrelling are Enemies to no one; they never sport or toy with their Wits, but are so solicitous and careful about their Gall, that they are altogether void of, and are without Salt— But give me a Friend with whom I may display the Urbanities of a jocund humour, and beguile the tediousness of the hours with the pinquunt facetiousness of smart Jests: but however in regard they are harmless, such dispositions may please whether amongst Friends or Enemies; but because they study to deserve and caresse so coldly; as that they neither love nor are beloved, and as they have most delicate ears, so the unhappy event of one cruel joke, will scare them out of Company.  
There is a third sort of people, who voluntarily exclude themselves from the precincts of Friendship, whilst they only speak for fear of others, and if they accost any one, seem rather to commit theft, than to wove ● Dialogue: they discourse softly History and Annals, and whisper Edicts and Acts of Parliament, and (like Cinna in the Epigram) they commend the Prince in your ear, they praise the invention of letters, and the acrimonious moisture of tart Citron, and (if possible) without voice, or Books, would rather show what they would have, than speak it: and these are so suspicious, that they are scarce secure even from themselves; because truth loves to be seen and seeks no corners, I am apt to believe therefore that there is no sound Affection in such private tempers; they are silly wasps of mankind, who from every Company suck poison.  
There are opposite to these other Persons, who are as free and open, as they were private and reserved men of a crystal and transparent breast, who have cribrous sides, and are full of chinks, from whom whatsoever is put in, either through the easiness of Nature, or softness of Humour, doth leak out. Who or what these persons are, not Apollo himself, with his whole choir of Muses can declare unto us; they have an Extempore way of living, neither do they perform those things they thought on, but those, which they have popped on; and act not so much by consideration as chance, and if they offend, 'tis rather out of weakness than choice, out of infirmity rather than Judgement: and (like Fabius in Livy) are rather inconstant in good than diligent in evil. And as they are wild and talkative, so they often discover some grains of salt, some Specimens of Ingenuity, which are rather the Products of the Madness of their Brain, than of the Acuteness and Easiness of their Wits. Somewhat of kin to these are those, who are inspired with Eloquence only at Feasts and taverns, who never clear up into laughter, but when they sup abroad. These seem to be born on purpose for Saturnalia? they spend their time in much Festivity, but withal they live in jolly Gluttony. No man gins a story more happily, or commends the treatment more lavishly. What news? he receives at the gates original Rumours, neither need any one tell him the portents of a Comet, or in what breast the Spaniard will sheathe his sword: But if these persons are driven out of the road of their common discourse, than their fluency engendered at other men's trenchers forsakes and leaves them, and then they begin to be tedious, who only maintain their tongues in obedience to their bellies; and now amidst such infinite variety of Humours and Tempers, who dare unbutton his Breast, and unbosom his Soul, and lay himself naked to the conscience of every man? who would not be censured and accused for Temerity, whom the Perfidiousness of others should thus unwarily overwhelm? though fortunate and happy Love hath blessed thee with a Friend free from these Evils so common to Mortals, one in thy Opinion fit for the mysteries and secrecies of private Counsels, yet thou know'st not what a day may bring forth: there are vicissitudes in Love, Truces and Enmities, Wars and Peace, and though the wounds of offended Majesty may be sometimes healed; yet they so close as to leave a scar behind them, as a monument of the Injury; so that there may still remain a jarring Harmony, and grudges more dangerous, than open Animosities. A fracture in a joint will hardly be set, and abreach in an Union so close and intimate will be scarcely soldered. Fraternal hatred is become a Proverb, and 'tis a Maxim, that most implacable Emnities are betwixt those of a blood.  
Thus you see 'tis not safe to be too much a companion, but sometimes destructive; for who is there that understands men, and who is a sagacious diver into humane Souls? I say amidst the insinuating caresses and blandishments of Lovers, as exchanged hands, mutual Embraces, and reciprocal Sighs, Protestations and Oaths, who dare, I say, rather promise or assure himself of Fidelity, than deceit and snares? certainly more innocent and harmless Souls have been often circumvented by specious pretences and appearances of Affection, and such impostures are so much the more rife, by how much the more securely they can cheat and cousin. Who would have thought any Treachery lurked under that vizard of Friendship between Firmius Catus and his dear Libo, who was his Associate in Luxury, Debt and Lust too? who would have suspected Falsehood in the Familiarity between Lactiaris and Sabinus? Love and Affection the most simple things in the world are both ensnared, and Libo and Sejanus are destroyed by those from whom they expected the greatest Safety. Wicked Latiares occur every where, who after the greatest Profession of the sincerest Love do entrap Mortals in their unwary discourses; they are the worst kind of Enemies, for whom we cannot be prepared in War, and against whom we cannot be secure in Peace; vomica & carcinomata humani generis born only for the public evil, worthy to sail in Trajan's boat, being Piacular victims of intestine Wars, Slaughters, Desolations, and seeing they are hated as much by them, whom they prosit, as by those whom they accuse, let them suffer punishment with the same pain, they procure it. Men can never be cautious enough at all times; and I fear a man can never be suspicious enough about their Examples, from whose end there can never be faithful security.   

DECLAM. VII. Whether the decay and Periods of Empires are to be ascribed to Fate?  
WHat? when Fortune suspends the guidance of the world, does it then begin to shake and totter? Is the Universe Governed by the Fortuitous turn and temerarious courses of blind chance? 'tis unseasonable impiety that disturbs and tortures Epicurus his Ghost; we follow not the conduct of the Heavens, neither do we lead our lives according to the Government of the Stars. All things are established in certain Periods, and we are all ruled by the preordained Counsels of impendent Fates. Behold! the Funerals and remaining Ashes of the chiefest Monarchies! a purpleed Emperor crowded into the narrowness of a little Urn! see! the posthumor rubbish of mouldered Cities, and the noisome carcases of numerous Armies! one hour will sacrifice a thousand Myriads to the shades below. See! this is the ratified decree of the stubborn Destinies.  
He that in the volumes of the Heavens hath read the Nativities of Kingdoms, and hath consulted the Stars, midwifeing it at the Birth of an Infant Empire, I say, such a man may by a certain Augury foretell the Fatal Period of a dying Nation as well as if he had studied the dismal Annals of the cruel Fates, or as if the Gods had informed him by the Embassy of their Agent, I mean their Mercury. When a Comet flames with its direful beams, and when the Deities have set up their funeral Torches, who suspects not the death of a King at hand? surely they kindle those blazing Lamps to discover the untrodden way of Princes to Bliss, or rather they are Festival Lights, Solemn Bonfires, made by the Gods to congratulate their Instalment into their pleasant Paradise.  
There is nothing in the world more august than Majesty; 'tis a personated Deity, and is inscribed with Divinity. How sacred is that head that supports a Crown! how holy that Person that's attired with reverend and modest Purple? yet those that celebrate magnificent Nativities, and more solemn Obsequies, tell us, that even Caesar's themselves are born and die as we do; Nature hath made them of nobler mould, but yet one spark of a Fever, one dram of Poison will soon dispatch them from the Elements, and send them on an Errand into another world. How slippery is the top of fickle Fortune! how steep and declining is Honours Precipice? how whirling and unsteady are the Pinnacles and Battlements of Potent Empires! The haughty Sun that now culminates in the Zenith with his whole Orb of Light, after a few minutes declines towards his western Grave; and the Lamps of Heaven are all kindled to inflame the magnificence of his Funeral; and thus the constitutions of Empires are brittle and uncertain. An ambitious cloud through the propitious serenity of a smiling day, aspires aloft, and climbs the air, which being disquieted and tossed by the ruder winds, melts into tears, and weeps itself down into the lower Region; and such is the downsal of the greatest Dignity.  
Fancy Alexander the Lord of the Earth, and the universal Monarch of all Nature; I say, Fancy him on a Throne begirt with a ring of numerous Guards; Fancy the whole race of mankind to be listed into one Macedonian Army! and than I pray, what rustic Deity can be so uncivil as to dethrone the King, to uncrown his brow without incurring the guilt of horrid Treason? yet after all this Pomp, after a few years he yields to Fate, at the dissolution of whose Empire, are born many petty Principalities, as the Stars do appear and rise at the Sun's Funeral. Why should I mention the Tragical Catastrophe's of expiring Kingdoms. The whole Universe hastens and inclines to the West, and we, whom Nature hath reserved to the last twilight of the setting world, I say, we must undergo the extreme vicissitudes of all things, when the Universal contexture shall be all unravelled, and the series of time shall have run to its last sand. I wonder at the quietness of Students in so great a whirlwind and hurry of Business, who despise the Vanities and Trifles of Wealth and Honours, and inquire not so much as what the world is doing without their Studies.   

DECLAM. VIII. Unity doth preserve a City.  
SO Divine are the advantages, so charming the Beauties, and so prevalent the Power and Force of Unity, that 'tis the very Life and Soul, the very Flame and Spirit that actuates, that gives briskness to every thing. If all Strife was condemned to the shades below, and this kinder Deity would converse with men here in this light above, I know not what golden ages, what pleasant Elisium's 'twould procure to Mortals, nay (to speak more boldly) an Eternal world, but as the Philosopher tells us, if the Sun should be buried in an Eclipse, and be exiled from his Orb, the day would be extinguished, and die into darkness, and the obscure Globe of the widowed Moon would fly and vanish into winds and showers: and thus, if concord should be banished from this Sublunary Scene, and Friendship ostracismed out of this inferior world, and the golden chain of Unity should be unlinked and broken; how soon would this beauteous contexture be all unravelled into its first Chaos, the unpropped Heavens would want an Atlas; Kingdoms would moulder into dust and rubbish; and Princes vanish into air and shades; there would be either no Empires at all, or very vain ones like heads in Pictures without brains. In vain would the Heavens slatter themselves with the hopes of a long duration of inviolable Stars and uncorrupted ages, if they did not harmoniously accord within themselves, and all discord being divoreed of the wrangling Qualities, if by a happy marriage they were not united to their matter and among themselves too.  
The daily dissolution we see in things, and their continual hastening to their last period, proceeds merely from Strifes and Contests. The Elements do mutually engage at cuffs, and as it were studiously bend on each others ruin, do box it stoutly till death do part them. Neither can we mortals boast a greater Safety, who through Wars and Contentions do rush upon our Fate with winged speed. Death would every where be esteemed but a Fable and Phantasm, a very valn and trivial Deity, if men would accord within themselves, and enter into a strict League of mutual Charity. For no life so happy or (as if emulous of Heaven) comes nearer the Nature of the Gods above, than where there is a recipocal Harmony of wills and desires, and (if possible) a mixture of Souls. The most impregnable Bulworks, nay the Sinews of a Nation, even money itself, can't so fortify a City, as the mutual Kindness, and Love of Citizens. No engines whatsoever, nay the tutelar Deities themselves can't be Talismans' sufficient for the defence of that place, which is not blessed with the sacred Genius of Unanimity. For how doth it lie open even to an unarmed man, when fermenting and boiling with intestine fends it contends against itself, and is its own Enemy! to how great dangers both of Rocks and Waves is that vessel exposed, which amidst bussling storms and the gaping Ocean (as it were for the pastime of the winds) is distracted with the contrary violence of divers pilots! and certainly to no less hazards is obnoxious that City, whose Inhabitants disagreeing among themselves, and being of various tempers, do exchange their Peace and Quiet for bloody brawls and inhuman Slaughters. That, either shelves and quick sands, this, either its self, or its Enemies will overwhelm with ruin. As a dismal instance of this sad Event, I appeal to that fortified City of Regium, so besieged on all sides with strength and Bulworks, that it stood impregnable against all invasion, and baffled the assaults even of the God of war: But when once it began to groan under intestine Animosities, with what winged speed did it ●lie to ruin, and how soon did it drop into dust and rubbish? how many Ghosts did the civil Wars dismiss to the shades below! how did they tyre the Destinies with repeated Funerals! and weary the boat of re●●less Charon? and at last, with what Facility did the besieged, their strength being most decayed by a long League, I say, how soon did they raze the City, and drew about it their hostile plough? and therefore (O Rome!) not an Army of mountains can promise thee unshaken walls, or a safe Capitol, so long as thou framest to thyself Trojan horses, whilst Private Catilines with fire and sword invade the Senate.  
There is no speedier way to Spoils and Trophies, than when (Swords and Souls as it were conspiring) all men levelly at the same end. Nothing sooner blocks up the passage of an invading Enemy, than twisted Counsels and breasts united in one common Harmony. Not numerous Xerxes, a General more formidable than any Encelladus, at whose sight the very Sun absconded and Nature tottered, whose Army siped up the Ocean, and whose Arrows Heaven; I say, this terrible Warrior could not one jot prevail, either with fire or sword, against united Greece; for that all commanding Deity, Love, soon scattered his Forces better than the strength of any Engine. What unprofitable darts did that grim aspect of war shoot and levelly? how was the sword brandished in vain? neither could any Arm, or the God of war himself do any thing.  
Let us reflect on our age, and take a survey of this Kingdom! what serene days have we enjoyed here! how, to the envy of ages and nations, without camp or sword, hath our Britain flourished! and I hope will for ever enjoy an undisturbed peace! we congratulate our Unity, Peace, Laws, Judges, Flamines, Temples, Cities, Academies, and whatsoever is sacred or august in this our England. What Elegancies are legible and inscribed on the fabric of the body? what charms are conspicuous in each part, and what Divinities are scattered in every member! how in vain doth the Dotage of the year discover its horyness in Ice and Frosts, and with what fruitless flames do the Stars burn; seeing it can establish to itself an amicable concord, and harmonious temper; whereas let but the disagreeing Principles of things contend and squobble, and how swiftly do they hasten to their ruin?  
Thus Cities grow, and great wealth is preserved, and a little increased by Concord; but Discord diminisheth the most pompous riches, and utterly razeth the most opulent Towns. Those things are most durable, which are most one and united; and all things covet an Eternity, and are ambitious of Immortality. Thus stones stick most closely in their several Parts; water crowds into a globe lest it should perish by division; if any thick body be laid upon it, it is advanced upward, and (I know not by what instinct) preserves it in an abiding state, in regard the parts will not be separated from their parts; for all separation is fatal to things that are alike. Particles of water falling on the pavement of a smooth table, appear and show themselves tumid and globular, neither will be demolished into flatness by the shaken board. But if other portions of the Element be added to them, than one drop hath a mind to, and desires another, and then they are as it were immediately married and mutually incorporated, assisting each other against the hostilities of the air, and the violence of the surface on which they fell, lest they should be destroyed by them. All which do as it were with a vocal stillness whisper and suggest and as so many mute Doctors do proclaim by their filence, what a guard inviolable Concord and Unity uniterrupted by Strifes and emulous of Eternity hath indulged to Nature.  
But now, if Nations own their Cities, (those Souls of Kingdoms) and Sceptres to Love and Amity, and are more safely begirt with a guard of hearts, than of swords or hands, or if these sublunary things in the absence of this Deity, should be presently involved in a sudden destruction, neither Nature herself, nor the World, no, nor the Deities themselves could prorogue their Eternity: If this is the happiest boon and the safest benefit that Nature ever bestowed on mankind, I wish all things lucky and prosperous to all men; and 'tis the sum of my desires that this our Parnassus may eternally flourish with the beauteous harmony of Counsels, Arts and Souls; and above all names, thrice holy be to us that innocent and propitious Genius of Unity and Concord; but as for Strife and Discord, let them for ever be condemned to the lower Regions, and be a vexation to the Furies amongst which they were bred! let Envy be banished to the infernal shades whose poisonous Nature blasts by infection its neighbour's Fame, lest it should survive and increase its leaness. Be gone all ye clamorous detractors with your virulent tongues, who are armed with the points and stings of Satyrs, or pointed with the stings of Satyrs, whose weapons are tincttured with the blood of Vipers; who never think themselves more content and quiet, than when they wrangle and brawl with the greatest disquietude! let fraternal Animosities die and vanish! let it be no longer proverbial that most implacable Enmity arises from blood! let us not, as if born so many Catilines against our Rome promote domestic feuds, or civil discord, but let all our Studies, Muses, Souls and desires conspire in this one thing, that these our mansions may ever enjoy the blessing of peace to the increase of Piety, Concord, Virtue and Unity.   

DECLAM. IX. Whether the Senses can err, or be deceived, when conversant about their proper objects? Affirmed.  
HOw is humane Understanding enwrapped in darkness? how is that Diviner fragment of a Rational Soul benighted as it were in the mists of Error! that offspring of Jove that constitutes men, nay Dignifies them with the Essence almost of Gods, I say, how is it invelop'd in clouds of Ignorance! the too frequent infirmities and failures of crazed and distempered heads, and that variety of danger to which every year, age, and lives of all men are casually exposed, are too ample demonstrations of this truth.  
Behold! 
A description of an Epicure.  here's one born for the Luxury of a banquet! see! another. Sardanapalus, whose very Nature is calulated for a festival entertainment. He Deifies a Kitchen, and adores the ingenuity of a palatable dish, and is prostrate to a table groaning under the varieties of Ambrosian delicacies. He looks upon that to be the flower of being, and as it were the Life and Soul of Life, which lies melted and dissolved in the midst of Junkets even to the nauseating of the plenty of loathed dainties. He never thinks he fares deliciously unless his riot doth invert the season, and he crown his goblet with winter Roses; unless Falernian dissolve the Summer Snow in his cup of Pearl, and a strange Fowl of an unknown sky, or an exotic Fish of a foreign shore are the constant messes of his curious meals. He increases the thirsty Avarice of his silver dropsy with golden naps, being laborious even beyond Cleanthes for self and money. He fancies to himself I know not what kind of Chimecal happiness to arise even from his very pockets, and had rather be a Croesus or a Midas, than a Saturn or a Jove in their respective Heavens.  
He loves to be seen in a crowd or throng, and then thinks he most happily sets up his plumes, when his sweaty singers are hooped with a Summer ring.  
When born on six men's shoulders (on both sides  
The curtains tucked up, windows open) rides  
Lolling Maecenas like—  
Every wish aims at Empire, and he is highly smitten with and dotes on Monarchy. Whilst his Soul is involved in clouds of Error, it is a very ill Judge of things, wherefore he, ambitiously breathing after that Fortune, which the higher it is, it is the more unstable, and through the anger of the Fates sinks and falls with a greater ruin.  
So purblind are the minds and understandings of men, that it oftentimes embraces falsities for truths, and (whilst we too silly do follow its guidance and conduct) it doth varnish, and adulterate evil into good; wherewith we are not only unwarily deceived, but sometimes ensnared into our own ruin; and can by no means promise the rays of the Moon and Stars to be kept inviolable, if a bolder cloud and impudent darkness should invade the Sun; neither can it be hoped that those streams should be clear and crystal, which derive a filthiness from the very Fountain.  
The Will seems to be darkened by the borrowed errors of the Understanding; if therefore these endowments of Immortality, these almost Godlike Powers of the Soul, the Mind and Will, have their failures, false Images and representations of things, we should much offend in ascribing so great a certainty to outward senses, which we have in common with brutes. These guards or sentinels are so far from being acute anddextrous, that their deceptions equal them, and they are guilty of as many Errors as they have Objects. Thus the Stars to the bleereyed are as so many Giants, and the Moon seems less than every wheel. I shall not insist on fantastic Meteors, which having no existence, are only splendid and gaudy apparitions; thus sweets are bitter to the Feverish Palat. Here is one tickled with the harmony of the Spheres, and there is one offended with the fragrancy of a Rose. The Errors of the Senses are so frequent and familiar, that it is not worth while to insist any longer upon them.   

DECLAM. X. Whether Monarchy be the best Form of Government.  
SIlence! what confused Noise and Tumult is this? How great a concourse of clamorous People! Can we tell what they say, or wherefore they are come together? They cannot tell themselves. Liberty, Liberty they cry, and they say, they are come to choose their Governors. Let them set their hearts at rest, and calmly departed; their Governor is not now to be chosen, since God and Nature, and Law Natural are before hand with them, who have unanimously appointed them a Government under one Sovereign Governor, whom they call a Monarch: For who brought in other Forms, Aristocracy or Democracy; Let them look back into the Originals of Rule and Government, trace the History of their Ancestors, when the world was not so mad and tumultuous? Do we find Anarchy in the first Ages? Any Field-meetings and tumultuous Inundations of People, which, their banks being broken, furiously drive on and bear all before them? Did God and Nature so ill provide for the world, that they left them at any time without Government, that men must shift for themselves and be their own Providers of so great a Blessing.  
'Tis true, if Mankind had grown out of the Earth like Mushrooms, or spawned into the world at one instant, if they had been transformed from Emmets to Myrmidons, or like Frogs and Tadpoles, (the only Aborigenes that I know,) had been conceived by the slime of Nile, and from thence, peopled the world, they might then have muttered something of choosing a Governor, if a People in the State of a Natural Barbarity and savage life can attain to so much sound reason and good insight in Morals as to call for Order and Government, which I much question, since civil Education is one of the benefits of Government: as for Experience, there can be none in our case.  
No, Principio rerum, saith the Historian, Gentium Nationumque imperium penes Reges erat. At the beginning the world knew none but Monarchy. Omnes antiquae gentes Regibus quondam paruere, saith the Orator. Not only the East and South Asia and Egypt, but even Italy, Greece, and the territories thereof, which in after ages admitted Democracy, or Aristocratical mixtures, such as Argos, Athens, Sicyon, Lacedaemon, were at first governed by Kings, whose names are still preserved in History. For so it is, if we run back the scries of the Generations of the world, as far as the clew will guide us, we shall find that Government was first founded in Families, which multiplying into Tribes, became Townships, than Cities, whence their Dominion growing considerable, discovered to their Neighbours their way of Government, which was by their Natural Prince.  
Where then is the Noise? the Liberty that they so cry up, what would they have when they say they are freeborn? they do not intent, sure, to do what they list; For if Monarchical Power, as all civil, yea and barbarous Nations confess, is founded in Paternal Power, than it is clear from God and Nature's Law, that no man can say, he is freeborn from Government, since it is his Governor, who begat him.  
Hence the Divine Command, which knew how to express itself, by honouring our Father and Mother, secures Obedience to their Prince, being literally true in Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel, that they were Fathers and Princes of their People.  
And that the Commonalty may learn what share they had then in Election of their Governor, the firstborn, by his Primogeniture, his unquestionable Right, succeeded.  
This is the Government, which God and Nature hath appointed; All other Governments are Sophistical, forced devices of Politic unpolitique men, lame and imperfect and spurious Models, scarce to be called by the beauteous name of Government, but as they resemble the feature and lineaments of Monarchy. I know the unhappy conceptions of the inconsiderable Vulgar, who (for want of Education and better Principles) look upon their supreme Governor, as a Nuisance to mankind, a person only of an exalted Fortune, living at his ease and splendour (which if they were anatomised, we should find they grudge to all, but themselves) Careless in the mean time of the Law, and the Commonwealth, with Power to oppress, not to Protect.  
But this is a false Character, unreasonably made up by the Envious observers of the failures of the person, who never counterpoise them with the unspeakable benefits we enjoy under Him. The beholder was in the shade and dark side of the Piece: Let him suffer himself to stand in the true light, and he shall discern better Features.  
Consider Him, with me, as the Sacred Fountain of JUSTICE, a Word not to be writ but in Capital Letters, engraven in a Memory of Marble: Consider Him as the great Soul of the LAW, the Rule and Standard of Justice, and like the Soul, (for that also is a Monarch and hath its jurisdiction) exercising vital acts through all, even the remotest parts of his territories, in every Borough, Village, Hamlet, by his inferior Courts and Officers, without which there is no Life in the Body, no Liberty, no Safety, no Right, nothing that is dear to us shall be enjoyed, nothing that is due to us shall be recovered; All that I am or have shall be at the mercy of another; my estate, whether left me by my Ancestors, or dear gotten by indefatigable industry, carried away without remorse; my  driven off my ground, Herbage trod to dirt, Corn fields fired, my Children spirited away, Wife ravished from my arms, my own person dogged and waylaid by treacherous miscreants, and for a fatal conclusion of all mischiefs, barbarously murdered; my carcase in the mean while bleeding for a Coroner, only my Soul escapes away to complain of the murder.  
So that without the Law, I should not live in a Tub, with the Philosopher, but in a Mortar, where every Man may pound me; besides that even my fears would daily kill me, as in a distressed vessel in a very tempestuous Sea, men die every minute, and their hearts sink a thousand times before the vessel is foundered.  
How blessed a thing is Government, which staves off all these injuries from us? and forbids them under such severe penalties which none but mad men will incur? How blessed a thing is Law, which brings Safety into the world, and Innocence, the Parent of Safety, under whose protection I enjoy my unconfined Liberty, my house is not my prison but my castle, the highway is my road, the neighbour meadows are my walks, and the whole land is my market.  
These things considered, it is mere stupidity not to think of a Governor with honour, and mention him with respect, the Monarch I mean, if Kings prove to be the ancient form, to Them we are obliged for the establishing these Laws, and to none before them.  
Where are the Republicans then, is not our Monarchy a Commonwealth? Ingratitude itself cannot deny it? The other Names of Commonwealth counterdistinct to a Kingdom, are but a cheat; a delusion of the people with an ambiguous word; for a Commonwealth truly so called, is really found in the Regal Government, as is evident by the Family, its first rudiment, where the Laws of the master of the house provide for the common good, even for the Servants themselves, according to their Station. But 'tis true, as it happens in Families, so we often see it in Kingdoms, men are weary of their services and Freedoms too, when they cannot mend themselves.  
For the establishing of Monarchy therefore, let all Patrons of Aristocracy and Democracy know, there are and aught to be many Governors subordinate, yet Sovereignty is settled in one. One, I say, to avoid division, therefore hateful because it obstructs the common good, proves the bane of Governor and People; Just as if you divide the Natural Body, it perishes; yea one Limb severed from the whole, keeps no life after; but endangers the rest. Not a poor worm divided can subsist, its severed pieces may make a show of life and struggle for a while, but they never unite again, an Army divided needs no other foe, it countermines and dissipates itself.  
Trace we therefore the Footsteps of Divine and Humane Wisdom, and we shall find by way of prevention, one Head in the Natural Body, and one Head in the Politic, one Paterfamilias, one Husband, one Prince, one General, one Pilot. What is the Lion in the Forest but the Prince of his territories, the Master Bee (King or Queen we will not dispute) but the Monarch of the hive, the Sun in the Firmament, the Governor, the leader, the Choragus of all the Stars. God has made Monarchy to flare in our eyes, in Heaven itself, there is One Chieftain, and how much more ought there to be on earth, seeing in earth, we have many giddy Planets, who will go direct and retrograde and how they please.  
May we not add, the Lord of the Universe is but One, nay, that his perfection lies in that he is but One, two chiefs are as absurd as two infinites, certainly all Majesty is seated in Unity, Divided Government makes no show, there is Majesty in the prospect of a vast mountain, and none in a hundred molehills.  
And what news is it to tell the world, even from that one head of the antiquity of Monarchy, that the Earthly Monarch is constituted by the Heavenly, ordained to be his Deputy, a Viceroy to him, reigning in his stead? Weak People, God help us, we are not willing our duty should be demonstrated to us, we would have all obligation to be at pleasure and indifferent, but yet 'tis this Divine Deputation which only exalts and sets him on his true base, ennobles the Governor, not his Person or his Nature (for with the poor rustics leave, he is a man like us) but his Relation to that Sovereign Power, far above all Principality, whose very adumbrations require our honour, subjection being due to his Institutions,  
And lest the Republican should plead ignorance, let us show him how this Relation is made known, more especially in Successive, the only true Monarchy: Even by that very Succession, when Heaven is pleased to commend to us a Prince descended of Princes, and that by an Immemorial descent, willing to signalise a Family and perpetuate the stream of Blood Royal from age to age; Beside Personal Majesty, not assumed, but inherent, Royal Clemency, Gracious and Peaceable Temper, to which we must add a Testimony from Heaven, Miraculous gifts of Healing entailed upon the Blood: So is the Lion's Prerogative manifested by his pace and aspect, and the presidence of the Bee by his size and wing.  
So that we ought to hear no more of that infidel objection, That the King is but One, and therefore cannot be greater than his thousands of his People: the answer is bold to say, He stands for GOD; so that though he is One, he is found in the place of millions, and according to true Arithmetic, if we try numeration aright, he is of more value than the subsequent numbers.  
Let the King therefore be chief in God's name, and then view his lovely train of Nobles, Dukes, Earls, Viscounts, Marquesses, Barons, Knights, Judges, Gentry, to take no notice of the Ecclesiastical state, How transporting is the prospect, how beautiful and stately is the enclosure, a Garden decked with flowers Imperial, distributed in their Beds, where by the variety of their Colours, in field ARgent, Or, Gules, Verl, they delight and distract the eye (while we the poor commons are the humble Grassplots of the place) All with the Heliotrope, worshipping the Sovereign, who gives life and spirit to us by day, and refreshes us with his dews by night.  
What of this have we in a Democracy; Go to the Roman; First, a goodly pair of Confuls, than two or three hundred Patricians, over them a Censor to take their names, yea and estates too; a Praetor, a Tribune two or three or more according as they can speed in the scuffle of Elections, a Scavenger Aedile etc.  
We will not anatomize the Belgie Estates, nor yet the Venetian Optimacy, we hear of the number of their Clarissimo's: All that we say is, they have a blot in their Escocheon, a great diminution of Honour on this very account of the plurality of Governors. 'tis more honourable to be governed by One, more honourable both to Governor, and Subject also; the first, that a Monarch is more Noble than any, appears by this, that He to whom singly the whole is committed, is more Honoured than those Many to whom it is jointly entrusted, as clear, as that the Whole is greater than the Part, so that is dispatched. More honourable even for the Subject, the People governed; for thereby they get the name of a peaceable, tractable, wise and intelligent people, who, come the worst that can be imagined (and whatsoever can be imagined, will be objected by turbulent persons) had rather suffer ill than act it, rather wait upon the will of Heaven, than throw themselves into hurry and confusion, Confusion being a plague not to be found in Hell itself, not to be looked upon without horror by all who have known or heard of its dismal acts on the late English Pharsalia, an infatuation greater than any other, which can befall a People, greater than Lunacy, Mania, or whatever species there are of distracted wits, in a miserable, merciless People. A Clarissimo is an honourable person perhaps, in his own precinct, but abroad, he is to seek. A person loyal to his Prince is honoured wheresoever he comes, all foreigners do welcome him to their coasts. For the world hath no notion of that Honour, which men cut out to themselves, pitiful glow-worms, who shine by night, rotten sticks that look illustriously, but in a blind corner. So of old the ignoble Romans having excluded their King, degraded their Nation, (a just punishment for all such hotheaded Innovators; whose Honour spreads no further than their Arms would hue their way) being therefore, no question, assaulted by Kings and Princes, Pyrrhus, Mithridates, etc. and because they could not brook the so prosperous increase of so contemptible a government.  
For let me ask them, why, I pray, two Consuls? Rome was not founded by two Consuls, Cannot the same power which founded it, preserve it? why must authority be broken, piece-meal, which as all other good things, are best, Entire: In all Fractures, something must needs fall to the ground, some minute parts, at least. Two heads are better than one in Counsel, not in Government, we plead not for a head without eyes, Counsel overthrows not Monarchy, but establishes it, though by the way it is observed also, that Counsel, if too numerous, is inconvenient for resolution, as multiplicity of Commentators obscure the text.  
To proceed, Two heads are unnatural, a monstrous Government, an Amphibaena in Politics; therefore monstrous, because they take it to be a Serpent with two heads, discharging poison at both orifices; nor can Two be one politic head so easily, there are difficulties in the Politic as in the Natural Union. For what if Appius Coecus thinks himself as wise as Volumnius, etc. who shall moderate or reconcile? There wants a third Consul. Or if one excel the other, than we are reduced to one Consul, the other is a very Bibulus. See what a task you wise men of Rome have set yourselves! you must find Two of the same age, and the same prudence: (sooner shall the Egyptians find a successor to their strangely marked Apis) or else have One Consul still, for the Junior, in manners, must hearken to the Senior, compliment him so far, and the inferior Family give way to the Colleague of the noblest Extraction.  
Oh! but now they are free from Tyranny and a single Person. Alas! Two are but one degree removed from Tyranny, and two may agree to be Tyrants, (why not?) as well as thirty! we have heard of thirty Tyrants in Greek story. What remedy have you? Oh for that trick they shall be elected annually, they shall hold their Dignity but for a year. Mark the fears and jealousies of People with their new devise; the Administration of a Consulate must be annual, lest they should design to retrieve Monarchy; so have I seen watch and ward observed in a house to keep possession against the true Owner: Lo the difference of Monarchy from other Governments! behold and love it, for if Fears and Jealousies may be created sometimes under it, other Governments are merely founded upon them; whilst Monarchy alone is founded upon Law Natural, Age, Authority, Love, Prudence, etc.  
Take the Venetian State, behold the Italian jealousies, not of their Wives, but of their Governors, the grand Duke must not budge out of Town without the leave of the Senate, O pitiful grand Duke! O pitiful Venetians! For if the Duke should once go out of Town, the Ducal Coronet blossoms into a Crown: and call you This, Liberty? he lives in Slavery, who lives in perpetual fears, a very Gyrus and Geta, who always dreads his Masters coming. Nor let any man tell me this Estate hath lasted a great while, What is inferred from thence? Nothing of Nature or right Reason in it, 'tis a forced Government still, wherefore 'tis wonderful it hath lasted so long, ('tis true) because things against Nature use to have a shorter period.  
Now admit that annual Government were not founded in fears and jealousies, yet still in a Sovereign 'tis unreasonable and ridiculous; unreasonable, because all Government requires Use and Experience, besides Authority, to answer that infinite dispatch that is expected, but an annual Magistracy is confined to so short a term, that the Governor scarce learns how to behave himself, till he is ready to lay it down. All the benefit is, that the annual administration is very convenient for Chronology indeed, but the same convenience would be greater, if they were stated yet shorter: let the Consuls therefore be chosen to hold a month, or as the Decemviri were to rule in turn for a day— 'Tis All Boyes-play, Picture and Pageant, Princes of Revels, and Lords of a May time, rather than Government in earnest intended.  
Nor do we intent to say that Monarchy is more excellent on the account of its Antiquity, but also for its intrinsic perfection, the most sufficient and responsible to all intents and purposes which brought Government at first into the world. I have said 'tis the Government solely intended by Nature, it cannot be denied but 'tis the Standard of all the rest; for in Aristocracy and Democracy all plurality of votes effect nothing but by virtue of the single Form. They must be of One head and one mind, as if One single person, else they can determine nothing. Now seeing a nemine contradicente is seldom seen, they must be concluded by the major part, which major part rightly apprehended, is the spurious Monarch, an Individual multiplied, though but One in itself, or rather the many playing Mercury's part to the Auditors, while all wise men know there is but one Sosia.  
And what can be required at the hands of Government which is not here found? Justice, we have it in Monarchy: for Kings and Judges of old were the same persons. Honour we have it in Monarchy; Liberty, yea even Liberty, as I shall show, we have it in Monarchy; Safety from civil discords and seditions, we find in Monarchy: Safety from Enemies abroad; who must go in and out before us but the Monarch? And this the Antimonarchists could never wipe off; Three hundred heads in time of exigency, in time of war, are feign to have recourse to a single person; the Romans not long after their Regifugium, (that they might see that their Rebellion was senseless, when they stood in need of the Government, which they had lately expelled) were forced to pitch upon a General, whom they called indeed a Dictator, to blind poor people, when none could be more absolute King than he.  
Here is the trial of Government, as of the Pilot in a storm; In a calm we may have Liberty— to fish, if we please, but in a Storm we must receive the word of Command. Was it ever heard of in the world, that an Army was led by a Committee, to march up before their Divisions, and menace death to the opposer? O Alas poor souls! they must in their Rank, observe the Right hand Man; and so seeming Commanders, are, indeed Common Soldiers: as soon shall so many Ganders marching before their Divisions be terrible to the Foe.  
Yet this is not All: without Monarchy they cannot so much as raise an Army, for, the Enemy being at door; To see the ill luck of it, when the Consul musters, and the Tribune disbands as fast, they must choose a Dictator to make a muster.  
You will say this is pro tempore only; But what will be said, if all new Forms and Models return at last to their old Monarches, as the River will run in its own alveus. I must not here recount, what Piques and Stratagems there are or have been laid against Venice, much less will I divine how near our unhappy Neighbours are to their Reduction, to the united, not against, but under their Head: All the world knows, that the Roman State, of Royal became Popular, and at last Imperial.  
Here we should be Injurious to the Auditors, if they be not Reminded, That those who have been zealous in violating Monarchy, have commonly given the world sad warning by their remarkable Exit. Not one of them who assassined Caesar, which came not to a violent end, and the surly ill principled Family of Bruti show that this is Heaven's perpetual Method; since Caesar's assassinate was slain in battle by Octavius, as, four hundred years before, his Ancestor was slain by Aruns, to teach us, that if we list not to be ruled by the Public, the Indignation of Heaven will commissionate a private hand to order us; where the Seepter will not sway, the Sword must. And who can forget the Dire, but most just Fate, of our late Regicides, who deserved to be pitied, but that some others do more deserve it, I mean such as will not take warning from their lamentable period. Never shall I wonder, if a dry Gallows frighteth not a Thief, when Exenteration and Quartering deter not a Traitor; From such a tender Conscience Heaven deliver us.  
Yea, but to be free from Tyranny and Arbitrary Rule of a single Person, who often invades Liberty, and Property; violates the Privileges of the Subject, is not this desirable? Under Monarchy we suffer in our Estates; Taxes, Subsidies drain our purses, and after too great evacuation, leave them gasping for life; whereas under Democracy the People shall be Princes, and in what Government there is, we all shall have a share.  
Can this in our case be pleaded still, notwithstanding what hath been just now delivered; I had thought the hints of an Ignominious deserved death should fright us from these abortive dangerous Fancies. I answer fairly, Give me a free Republic with all my heart, where I may be free from Slavery and Treason too, where I may be free, Body and Soul, from the foul blot of Rebellion. The name of Rebel cates into and cankers the flesh, beside it sticks like a curse to the race and line of the attempter; Incest, Blasphemy, Parricide, Sacrilege, four foul offences; but Rebellion, so soul it is, involves Three of them.  
Again, let the Objectors Prudence consider not only the Present, but something of the Future, Who knows what will be after him? we have said and seen with thanks to Heaven, that a banished Prince may return again: In thy Behaviour to the Public have regard say I to thy own Posterity: thou shalt live but thy while; leave thy Children thy own and thy Prince's blessing; thy Deeds and Writings perhaps will not secure thy Estate to thy Heirs, unless thou draw up an Act of Oblivion, which since thou canst not do, let thy Heirs have no occasion for it. They who need it for their babes, must, when they die, pray that the Prince may never be restored, that Right may never take place, which beside the fruitlesness of the wish, how conducible it is to those, who commend themselves to another world, Let any sober man judge.  
As for Tyranny, and Arbitrary Power, Who will give us the definition of a Tyrant? 'tis more easy to asperse, than define. Every charge against a Governor will not amount to Tyranny, as neither every indictment of the Subject will come up to Treason. He who calls a Prince a Tyrant calls him Monster, murders, buries, yea stakes his body; for None is a Tyrant, but he who in spite of all Natural or Divine Laws, doth what he pleaseth; Unless you can insert that kill clause of felonious Indictment, viz. Having not the fear of God before his eyes, you are no Subject, but a Viper, and deserve to be trod on, after you have hissed and shown your teeth. In the vastness of administration, 'tis a miracle, if there be no failures: In the receipt of a sum of thousands, there may be one or two less currant pieces without the reproach, I hope, of Thievery or Cheat. How many times doth Innocence itself (to say nothing of unavoidable Oversight) in a Governor, suffer as grievously as wilful Malice? Even Lycurgus, 'tis a shame to hear it, was affronted, pelted with stones, and driven from his Kingdom: History rings how just he was, and yet how savagely used. And so 'tis fresh in our memories, how the meekest and most innocent of all Princes was stabbed by the vulgar, by the inscription of ultimus Tyrannorum. Naughty men calumniate strongly for their own ends, cry out upon One to set up an hundred Tyrants: Besides that many administrations of Government may be pretended to be Arbitrary, not because they are so, but because they are less usual, according to some emergencies extraordinary. Some wise men say that in all Supremacy, there must be some use of unconfined and arbitrary Power, which they prove by the confession and practice of the People, where they arrogate Supremacy; but if This be too high or harsh a string for us, than we say, whatever Tyranny or arbitrary Power signifies, 'tis a refractory Spirit to cry out upon the best Form, for the apprehensions of those abuses, which have been found in their own tumults and new Models. Cade and Tyler of old, as He who made the filthy rhyme to Magna Charta, were rascally Tyrants. Arbitrary Government by Arms, Rumps, and Committees; most men, who either love the Republic or their own Estates, do dread the return of such confounded Republics. To speak what I think, if we search the wound to the bottom, 'tis an impatiency of all Government, Divine though it be, in an untutored selfish people, that makes them so free in aspersing our Governors; such who have been bred to understand nothing so much as their private interest, instead of good manners or Religion itself.  
As to our Liberty, we have already said, that just Liberty is not invaded, for unjust and unnatural, why is it desired? what Man, who is truly man, dare stand by the wild notion of the vulgar Liberty? let lose the Felons then, and the Madmen, the Prisons and Bedlam be broke open in the name of Liberty; And let no man be bound, (That suits finely indeed, To be bound) no not to their good Behaviour. Let all young men, Apprentices, command their Indentures, and renounce or cancel their oaths of faithful service. Let the Tenants deny Service to their Landlords, for a Landlord is but a linch of Tyranny, and what is Rend, but an exaction of Tribute? by Nature we are all as good, one as another, and as free: let us remove therefore all encroachments (to speak out) of the Rich upon the meaner sort, and let Right be done, that is, let no great One run away with All, and an Hundred have just nothing: Let a through reformation and restitution be made of our ancient Liberty, and let Estates and Fortunes be sweetly leveled, for Government is a yoke; do our Lords think to make Brutes of us? This is the sense not only of the Roman Slaves, and Imperial Boors, who break out into seditions at every opportunity, but of the poorer sort among ourselves; See we the necessity of Government/ for who can out-vote them, who have most voices? It is expedient therefore for them to be instructed, that Levelling is Confusion, neither has Nature made all equal, witness the difference of Ages, Statures, Beauties, Parts or Gifts of the Mind. Government is as necessary as Breathing, 'tis called a yoke, but an easy one, (and so we may call our garments, if we please, because they are just fit to our bodies and keep them from growing out of shape.) Religion is also called a yoke, and I hope, we are not weary of that. Add, that Liberty is a Faculty of operating according to our Station: We illustrate it by the Members of the Body, who in their Stations have their Freedoms and their Privileges also, but yet exactly keep due order; the Foot may draw on a neat pantofle; the Hand put on a fine perfumed Cordovan; the Foot may walk forward, backward, Stand, Caper, Dance; the Hand may Give, Take, Exercise itself to work or play, But neither may the Hand assassin the Face, or pull out the Eye, nor may one Foot kick against the other. No man hath Liberty to forget himself; Vulgar people, like little Children, think their Liberty is infringed, when the troth is, they are blest with Government; so did I reckon, when I was a Child, that I was in Prison when I was in my good Father's house, because He pleased to restrain me from some licentiousness, which was indulged in other children: Attend, my dear Countrymen, if I had enjoyed my Liberty, I had been undone; I see now that my Father's restraint was for my good: Liberty is good, but we must not surfeit upon it, a convenient Dose is very proper.  
This being observed, I dare boldly say, there is no true Liberty, such as consists with Natural Order, but under Monarchy. We have branched out its Subordinations (as the Natural Body shoots itself into Limbs) from the Sovereign to the Peasant; As than it is in the Natural Body, the Foot cannot Petition to have the arm lopped off, and set itself in its room; so neither can the Peasant on pretence of Liberty challenge the Coat of a Gentleman; nor every Gentleman expect a Patent to be a Baron, In other Commonwealths its called Liberty; It is monstrous deformity or dislocation of Members, where the Leg grows out of the Armpit and its proud of the preferment. But as proud as it is, it is a foul spectacle and the true Augurs will tell you such monstrous Governments ought to be abolished.  
Taxes and Tallage are the easiest part of the objection, since Nature requires it, and all Religion allows it is due, every Profession demands a Fee, every Office its Salary; 'tis only Rustics, and want of breeding, who attaint the Priest, the Lawyer, the Physician, for a covetous Generation, while they only expect their Deuce: Governors are Ministers attending continually upon the discharge of their Office; And must only they be unpaid for their attendance? your Coachman and waterman must be considered for their attendance; Bees have more justice, who maintain their Master at the charge of the Hive. If God had made the Governors Immortal, He, nor They would have expected Subsidy, but seeing the Prince partakes of the Common Nature, 'tis barbarously sad to starve Him, and tends to nought, but the change of Government; as they, who lie before a City in hope to famish it, seek to master it.  
Now to all experience is it contrary to hope for redress from contribution under a Democracy, the Romans cess the people to purpose, and spared not, they knew the Estates of each Citizen, and they made use of them. It would do one good to consider how free our Neighbour Escates are from Assessments and Taxes, or to remember brave oliver's ninety thousand pound, with an additament of thirty thousand more to make it up 120000 lib. per mensem; Pay your excise for shame, O ye well wishers to Democracy, and mutter not at a round Assessment, for our blessed Democracy brought these knacks into England, and Let it not be said that these Oppressions are no pressures, when laid on us by Ignoble Usurpers, but only then, are intolerable, when called for by our Natural Prince; when we will mutter and mutter, fume and smother, till we break out into a flame, and depopulate our Native Country, rather than pay a six pence Shipmoney— Oh how long shall we be called an unruly People, who love our Prince, and yet sell him for six pence? When shall we wipe off the reproach, so long thrown in our faces, that the King of England is a King of Furies, Rex Caco D— My heart is not hard enough to speak out the word; Whence comes this foul Stigma, upon us? From the Stars? as Mr. Camden hath it, or the Temper of our Island? or is it a National Corruption drawn from our Saxon Ancestors, (since the Britain's are of better principles) or were we taught it by those Birds of Prey, those Families, (whose Gentry I question not) who came in with the Conqueror, with this noble Resolulution, to get what they could, and to part with as little as may be. Whencesoever it is, we shall never be Queen of Islands, till we have laid by such low Spirited principles, and studied our good name by more noble, more magnify Resolutions.  
To conclude, the Last is the most honest plea of all, viz. that under Democracy we shall have each of us a share in the Government, Every man shall take his turn; for Monarchy seems a Monopoly of Authority, but we desire a Free-Trade, in such Merchandise, many Families will be the better, when the Monopoly is divided, as Alexander's Empire upon his death made several petty Princes: So it is we would be All Paramount; 'tis a very loving proposition, and it will please our Wives be sure: But this is but a dream, a device to possess people's heads to fool them into turbulence; For Government is no Frolic, no ridiculous sport at Questions and Commands, where the Servant takes his turn of a Mock-King, and commands all the House; but Government is a most serious constitution to profit, not to please all; implanted in Nature, and Conscience, and hence is it, that in that very sportive way, where a Servant is King, he cannot command his Master in all instances of Obedience requirable without egregious Impudence.  
No, no; People are to be governed: Not an Army, or a Family, or any multitude can govern itself, they may wish their own conservation and welfare, but they understand not the means conducing thereto. Every member of the Army agrees in Victory or common Safety desired; but the Methods, the Intrigues and Stratagems how to expedite the Whole from this danger, or make them Masters of that advantage, These be Arcana, which the private Soldier doth not comprehend; Some shrewd pates there may be among the Country Buskins, and greater Pretenders within the City-Walls, but he would not deserve well of his Majesty, who shall advise him to search the Coffee-Assemblies for Privy Counsellors. Let them be wise, but with submission and a hearty belief that there are many in Place, wiser than themselves: Hast thou Sense and Sagacity, be thankful; but thou hast no obligation to be Proud; I will allow thee to be wiser than the Multitude, I find it by thy discourse; but if thou art wiser than the Many, confess then with me that the Multitude ought not to govern.  
I count them well employed that Religiously inquire into the reasons of Divine Sanctions, of whom at present I would gladly know, wherefore Heaven was pleased to ordain Successive Monarchies and not Elective. Surely beside the prevention of factious Field-meetings on the People's part, and crafty ambitious practices of the competitors side: He did not reckon the People under their pretended state of Liberty, to be competent Electors of their Princes: the Votes of a Commonalty can do much, yet it is still questionable, whether any voting themselves to be wise and prudent, can effectually make them such. So irrational is the claim of choosing their Sovereign, when they have neither Power nor Skill to entitle them to it: For if they had power, it would yet be an offence, not to call in wiser than themselves to their assistance: As the wife, though she hath unquestionable power, to choose her Husband, transgresseth the rule, if she hearkeneth not to the advice of her Parents. For how easy is the People, how ductile, hammered to all dimensions, and degrees of tenuity, a cunning Sophister can lead them with a twined thread of Rhetoric, to be Pompeians to day, and Caesarians to morrow. So tottering, and so unballasted are their Judgements, that they turn with every tide, and comply with the wantonness of the wave, if any wind be stirring. Intoxicated with false principles, (and such 'tis easy to infuse,) they will meet in great bodies, as if acted by Divine instinct: So will minute Fishes meeting in shoals overturn a Navy; and an Army of Grasshoppers blast and burn up all that is goodly in the Land. They say they are Freeborn, but they are kin to him, who would sell his Birthright; for Beef and Country Ale will marshal a Province. You may discover their Character by their abilities in Spirituals: One paltry lying Spirit will found a numerous new Sect, which will stand at defiance with Humanity itself: But if some men will strive to forget their most amiable duty of Allegiance, or, in spite of Conscience, throw it off, we shall hope still, that Monarchy will perpetually flow with the largest streams of time, that the English Roses will never be blasted in these our gardens: That the Royal Thistle shall avenge itself upon all unhallowed fingers, that the Genius of the Nation, the Bend of our Gentry, the Sublimity of our Peers, the Learning, Principles, and Spirit of our Clergy, I may add, the Flower of London its noble City and Lieutenancy, beside the Dignity of our Island, the Fame of our Ancestors (and what can I say more? except I should add the Decree of Heaven, of which I hope these are no contemptible arguments) will appear against all restless designs of ignoble Republics, wherever contrived at Club or Coffee-meeting, and that the public shouts of England and Dominion of Wales upon every occasion shall by ringing their Loyal Ejaculations make Holiday in the Air, while Heavens applauding, and the Earth dancing a Saraband, the Mountains shall answer the voices of Man, Woman and Child with the dutiful thundering rebound of, God save the KING.  
FINIS.     

Errata.  
PAge 164. line 12. inconsiderate. p. 169. l. 8. Substitutions. p. 170. l. 15. Verd. 172. l. 16. ●●le and p. 174. Syrus.   

Books sold by Obadiah Blagrave at the Bear in St. Paul's Churchyard, viz.  

DR. Gell on the New Testament, in Folio.  
Phillip's English Dictionary, explaining all hard English words, in Folio. price 12 s.  
Smith's Christians Religions Appeal against the Sceptics of this Age, in Folio, price 12 s.  
Parthanissa, a Romance, in Folio.  
Pharamand, all twelve parts, in Folio, price 1. l.  
Saunders Physiognomy and Chyromancy Metoposupany, explaining the moles of the body, of dreams etc. in Folio. price 12. s.  
Brome's Britannia being a large description of England with Maps of the Country  
Seldens Mare Clausum, concerning the Right and Dominion of the Sea, in Folio.  
Cockers large Copy Book in Folio, price 2. s. 6. d.  
Stapletons' translation of Juvenal, in Folio.  
William's perfect Statesman, in Folio.  
A satire against Hypocrites in Quarto.  
Complete Clerk and Scrivener's Guide, in Quarto.  
Stubs directions for Blood letting, in Quarto.  
Bishop sanderson's Life, with divers Cases of Conscience.  
Elton on the ten Commandments, Lords prayer and Creed  
St. Clement's Epistles translated out of the Greek.  
A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions by Sir William Pitt.