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Imaginary Contersation. 35 he has removed, and the^ difficuhies of every kind he has overcome. In like manner we should consider kino-s. Edu- cated still more barbarously than other barbarians, sucking their milk alternately from Vice and Folly, guided in their first steps by Duplicity and Flattery, whatever they do but decently is worthy of applause ; whatever they do virtuously, of admiration. I would say it even to Caius Gracchus ; I would tell him it even in the presence of his mother ; un- appalled by her majestic mien, her truly Roman sanctity, her brow, that cannot frown, but that reproves with pity ; for I am not so hostile to royalty as other philosophers are . . perhaps because I have been willing to see less of it. POLYBIUS. Eternal thanks to the Romans ! who, whatever reason they may have had to treat the Greeks as enemies, to traverse and persecute such men as Lycortas my father, and as Philo- pemen my early friend, to consume our cities with fire, and to furrow our streets with torrents (as we have read lately) issuing from the remolten images of gods and heroes, have however so far respected the mother of Civilization and of Law, as never to permit the cruel mockery, of erecting Bar- barism and Royalty on their vacant bases. PANETIUS. Our ancient institutions in part exist : We lost the rest when we lost the simplicity of our forefathers. Let it be our glory that we have resisted the most populous and wealthy nations, and that, having been conquered, we have been con- quered by the most virtuous ; that every one of our cities hath produced a greater number of illustrious men than all the remainder of the earth around us ; that no man can anywhere enter his hall or portico, and see the countenances of his an- cestors from their marble columels, without a commemorative and grateful sense of obligation to us ; that neither his solemn feasts nor his cultivated fields are silent on it ; that not the lamp which shews him the glad faces of his children, and prolongs his studies, and watches by his rest ; that not the ceremonies whereby he hopes to avert the vengeance of the gods, nor the tenderer ones whcron are founded the affinities