Would the Romans in the times of Scipio, have fuffered Cafar to keep his government in Gaul, to debauch the army, and openly corrupt the people? No. There were times when ten Pompeys and twenty Cafars could not have enslaved the Roman people.

A tender Virgin of eighteen years of age, has but little strength of body, compared with that of an athletic ravisher inflamed with luft. Yet we find she can preserve her honour fafe, if the pleases, even against his utmoft ftrength; and in fact, scarcely any woman lofes her virtue, no nation its liberties, without their own. fault. What Milton fays of one is true of both.

-Chastity!

She who has that, is clad in complete fteel,
And like a quiver'd nymph, with arrows keen
May trace huge forefts, and unharbour'd heaths,
Infamous hills, and fandy perilous wilds,
Where through the facred rays of chastity
No favage fierce, bandit, or mountaineer
Will dare to foil her virgin purity.
Yea there, where every defolation dwells
By grots and caverns fhagg'd with horrid fhades,
She may pafs on with unblanch'd majesty,
Be it not done in pride, or in prefumption.
-But when luft,

By unchafte looks, loofe geftures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd, and lavish act of fin,
Lets in defilement on the inward parts,
The foul grows clotted by contagion,
Embodies and embrutes, till fhe quite lofe
The divine property of her firft being.

MILT. COMUS.

Nothing is more effentially neceffary to the establishment of manners in a ftate, than that all perfons employed in stations of power and trust be men of exemplary characters.

•Let

Let Valerian [afterwards emperor] be cenfor,' faid the Roman fenators, who has no faults of his own a'.

The Roman cenfors had authority over all perfons, except only the governor of Rome, the confuls in office, the rex facrorum, and the superior of the vestal virgins. This office, fo useful in the republican times, was neglected under almost all the emperors b.

The Roman censors used to strike out of the lift those fenators, who seemed to them not to fupport, with proper dignity, their illuftrious ftation. We find fixtyfour thus difgraced, in the times of Sylla, when it may be fuppofed the manners were greatly degenerated.

It is to be doubted that those old-fashioned heathen cenfors would, if they were employed among us, take umbrage at our christian foibles of adultery, gambling, cheating, rooking, bribing, blafphemy, fodomy, and the other frolics which fo elegantly amufe our fenatorial men and women of pleasure.

The Romans to the laft fhewed their opinion of the usefulness of the office of cenfors. We find it, after a long interruption by the civil wars, reftored, and fixty-four fenators immediately ftruck out of the lift c.

Scipio was not chafte from ftupidity; for it is recorded of him, that he was a great admirer of beauty. Socrates acknowledged, that he was naturally inclinable to fenfuality, but that he had, by philosophy, corrected the bent of his nature.

The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men; fo common is it for them to change upon preferment, according to the old adage, bonores mutant mores.

Sylla,

a ANT. UNIV. HIST. xv. 416.

b Ibid.

c Ibid. x11. 151.

Sylla, who, in his youth, was of so tender a heart, as to weep for very flight occafions, became one of the moft cruel of men; ordered Granius to be strangled in his presence, as he lay a dying a, and deluged Rome with the blood of her citizens.

Nero, when he was to fign a dead-warrant, in his earlier years, often wept, and wished he had never learned to write. Yet the very name. of that prince afterwards became the proverb for cruelty.

That ftate is going to ruin, faid Antifthenes, in which the honours due to merit, are beftowed on the artful and defigning, or on the tools of power.

The Athenian archons, before they entered upon their office, were obliged to swear, that if ever they were convicted of bribery, they would fend to Delphi, as a fine, a ftatue of gold of their own fize b.

The antient Spartans chose their ephori out of any rank indifferently; which policy Ariftotle prefers to that of the Cretans, who elected their colmi only from certain particular orders.

Ariftotle fays, that in 400 years there was neither fedition, nor tyranny, in Carthage; a proof of a good conftitution, good administration, and virtuous man

ners.

Ariftotle commends the Carthaginian wisdom, for that they chose their men of authority rather according to their perfonal characters, than according to family. • Men of great power, and of no character, are very hurtful, and actually have very much prejudiced the Spartan republic.' And afterwards in the fame chapter, he blames their policy in confining authority only to the rich. For that this naturally leads the people

a ANT. UNIV. HIST. XIII. 96.

b Ubb. Emm.. DE REP. ATHEN. 1. 27.
C ARIST. POL. 11. II.

people to the admiration and pursuit of riches, rather than the study of virtue. Whilst it is impoffible that a state should be secure, where virtue is not supremely honoured.

The manners of the upper ranks will defcend to the lowest. When M. Antonius, grandfather of the triumvir of the same name, was accused, his flave bore the torture with heroic fortitude a.

It was to keep up a fenfe of national honour, that there was a law made, forbidding a Roman citizen to be scouraged b.

• Ad illa mihi pro fe quifque, &c.

'Let every reader of hiftory (fays Liv. Proam.) apply his mind to obferve the manners and characters of our ancestors; by what fort of men, and by what arts of peace and war, the commonwealth was raised; and let him attend to the caufes of its decline, viz. the neglect of difcipline, and degeneracy of manners; and let him obferve how this degeneracy has increased in an accelerated proportion, till we are now fallen into fuch a condition, that we can neither bear our vices, nor the reformation of them.'

When the first triumviri, Cafar, Pompey, and Craffus, were laying the foundation for the ruin of Roman liberty, and had fo debauched the people (a people cannot be enslaved while they continue honeft), that candidates, instead of depending on their fervices and merits, openly bought votes; and afterwards, improving upon corruption, instead of purchafing fingle votes, went directly to the triumviri, and paid down the ready money; when all was thus going headlong to ruin, Cato attempted to put fome check to the torrent of wickedness.

a ANT. UNIV. HIST. XII. 453.

bib.d. x11 212.

wickedness. What was the confequence? He only got himself the ill-will of both rich and poor. All love of country was then loft in a general scramble for the fpoils of their country a.

The refemblance between the difpofition of the Roman people of thofe degenerate days, and that of a certain country in our times, is striking enough to freeze the blood in the veins of every friend to that country.

· The Romans feems to have loft their national character from the time of the fall of their rival Carthage. Time was, when hardly a Roman could have been found capable of the villanous proceedings of Capio.

And it was not till the Roman virtue was degenerated, that the republic was capable of bafely violating a folemn treaty with the Numantians, though that unhappy people had actually complied with the condi

tions.

As if the fuperior powers had intended a leffen for all mankind, not to trifle with folemn treaties, the Romans are defeated by the Numantians (even the women lending their affiftance, and attacking the Romans with unusual valour), though their army was 30,000 against only 4000. Of the Romans, 20,000 were cut in pieces in the purfuit, their courage failing them, as through fenfe of the guilt of an unjust and cruel war. The Numantians would not afterwards treat with the Koman general; fo infamous was the character of those who formerly reproached the Carthaginians with their national treachery, at laft they agreed to treat with Tib. Gracchus, whofe reputation for probity, was eminent. The wicked fenate, as if determined ftill farther to make good the fufpicions, which the Numan

tians

a ANT. UNIV. HIST. XIII. 170.

b Ibid. x11. 392.