116 The Admirable Crichton. 



devoted interest in public affairs is full of rivalries, and indiffer- 

 ence to them, of vituperations, when the citizens, although 

 members of the same body, have no share in a mutual joy or a 

 mutual sorrow, but amongst whom their ordinary conversation is 

 full of hatreds, and there exists a pernicious flattery, the counten- 

 ance of all smiling and friendly, the mind of most dejected and 

 enraged ! If, I say, such passions torment your breasts, then at 

 once and for ever in the name of the Eternal God, cast out, 

 expel, reject, and banish this poisonous humour, this utter 

 madness of rage. For I trust that good citizens have, not as 

 citizens only, but also as Christians, long since abandoned this 

 attitude of mind. But if any traces of the old dregs or of wicked- 

 ness remain ; if neither shame, modesty, or the defence of your 

 fortunes, and the care of your wives and children, and the 

 solicitude for your own life, suffice to efface the memory of a 

 crime so dreadful — for, just so long dangers hang over you as 

 this villainy survives in your mind — consider the past disaster 

 and calamity to the Republic — I am, indeed, impeded by an 

 overwhelming grief of mind ! — and, in any case, may the fear lest 

 this most splendidly constituted Republic should again be 

 shaken, keep in check the words and operations of those agita- 

 tors. For, indeed, it is possible, remembering the beginnings 

 of the City of Rome, to hope that a city so cradled, and, so to 

 say, started in life as this, should at some future time occupy a 

 leading position in the whole world. For those small gatherings 

 of men which we call states originate in the humblest circum- 

 stances, and become greater from one day to another. Truly, 

 the essential condition of a well-founded state is that it should 

 be perfect mistress of its own affairs, and afterwards of those of 

 others. Such a state must be first of all concerned with the 

 safeguarding of its own liberty, before depriving foreign states 

 of theirs. This law flourishes in your Republic, for whose 

 safety and present tranquillity, for the advancement of the most 

 illustrious citizens of the senatorial order to its guardianship, 

 offer up your thanks to the Eternal God ; and join with me in 

 imploring His supreme Divinity that the magistrates themselves, 

 undaunted in their duties, and diligent in the administration of 

 justice, may be able to withstand the fickleness of the multitude 

 and the recklessness of abandoned men, and that the citizens liiay 



