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MODERX POLICY. 289 



mends the Ottoman wisdom ; for the great 

 Turk rivets himself to the imperial chair, with 

 the bones of his murdered brethren. Aspiring 

 desires are not only insatiate, but admit of any 

 sin, that will promote their ends : see Bassianus 

 murdering his brother Gota in his mother's 

 arms ; Andronicus strangling his cousin Alexius, 

 lest he should have a part in the empire that 

 had right to all ; see Caesar slighting the oaths 

 by which he had obliged his obedience to the 

 Roman senate. 



Finally, Ambition knows no confinement, 

 nothins: so sacred but it violates. The Gods 

 must bow and yield to it ; as Tertullian — ' It is 

 impossible to be ambitious without injury to 

 the Gods; temples themselves are not exempted 

 from the fury of the war ; the sacrileges of the 

 Romans were as numerous as their trophies, yet 

 the Gods followed their triumphant chariots.'* 



* 



COLASTERION. 



The Italian politician seems to intimate a 

 scruple, when he says : Si jus violandinn est, 

 regnandi causa violandum est. His (if) dictates 

 an uncertainty ; and if we appeal to the bar of 

 nature, or divinity, (though possibly the entire 



* Id negotium sine Deorum injuria non est, eadem strages 

 moenium et templorum j tot sacrilegia Romanorum^ quot tro- 

 phaea ; tot de Diis quot de gentibus triumphi. 

 VOL. II. U 



