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Engine of wrath, to scourge the human race,
And all black crimes by blacker to efface,
His rage to extinguish every virtuous sense,'
Gives him in hell the abhorr'd pre-eminence.

In his dire laws astonish'd nations see
Fines laid on tears, and soft humanity.*

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His harpy edicts, past their object reach'd ;

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To innocence unborn their claws were stretch'd;'

Before Lucina's, lo, his pains advance,

And mulets, ere life, made man's inheritance.
Each generous passion, chain'd to earth by fear,
Weak, and indignant, saw their foes draw near: 960
Rapine, Revenge, and Perfidy, and Hate,

Like famish'd kites, scream'd round the tyrant's state:

' He ordained by a publick edict that those who saved or harboured any of the proscribed, should suffer in their place.

GOLDSMITH'S Roman History:

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—novus punitor miserecordiæ, apud quem iniquo animo scelus

intueri, scelus admittere fuit. VAL. MAX. ut sup.

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› Proscriptorum liberis jus petendorum honorum eripuit, et bona

corum vendidit; ex quibus plurima primò rapuit. Liv. Epit.

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He, rais'd aloft amidst the infernal brood,

Cheer'd the fierce cry, and gorg'd their maws with

blood.

Thy demon, Marius! swill'd with human gore, 965
Near this blotch'd tiger's gives the contest o'er.*
Rock'd in Bellona's cradle, foe to peace,

And crown'd with laurels for deserv❜d success,
From thy first swath to arms and toil enur'd,
And harden'd by the wrongs thyself endur'd; 970
Disease besides, and age, and pain, combin❜d,"
And exile had inflam'd thy furious mind;

+ Abscissa miserorum capita, modo non vultum ac spiritum retinentia, in conspectum suum afferri voluit, ut oculis illa, quia ore nefas erat, mandaret. Quam porro crudeliter se in Marco Mario prætore gessit! quem non prius vitâ privavit, quam oculos infelicis erueret, et singulas corporis partes confringeret. VAL. MAX. ut sup.

Sulla tunc erat violentissimus, cum faciem sanguis invaserat.

SEN. Epistol.

' Marius, whose life was become burdensome to him from a complication of diseases, is supposed by some to have put a period to his own existence, in the seventieth year of his age, A. U. C. 666. Sylla and he suffered even in this world some retribution for their abominable cruelties.

Stung

Stung by them all, thy mercy was effac'd;
But Sylla mangled, when the offence was pass'd.
Heaven's strong examples these fierce rivals seem

6.

Of man's worst passions, in their worst extreme. 976 Pernicious and invincible he stood,

Alike the terror of the vile and good;

Able alike all semblances to wear,

Remorseless, deep, unsway'd by love or fear,
And most consistent, when most insincere.

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He left behind, more fatal than his crimes,"

His dire example to succeeding times;

Per questo Mario, e Sylla pose al mondo,

E duo Neroni, e Caio furibondo.. ARIOST. C. xvii.

7 The change of Roman manners certainly took place after the second Punick war; the change of the constitution may be dated from the time of Sylla's usurpation. The whole of his Dictatorship was a complete tyranny, and the model with little variation upon which was founded the despotism of the emperors. The old government raised its head again feebly at intervals, till it was finally annihilated by Julius Cæsar and his successors.

To

To lawless power his usurpation shew'd

The conqueror's sword could cut the speediest road; And Rome enslav'd by her own arms, declares, 986 Her future Cæsars were but Sylla's heirs.'

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So many states have lost their liberty by the sword, and so many are still held in subjection by it, that we naturally look with complacency and admiration to that wise and happy constitution, where this formidable engine has no edge but for the natural enemies of the country, and the foes of freedom.

Powerful as is the military force of Great Britain, it is so peculiarly constituted as to owe its very subsistence to the will of the people; who maintain it, not like other nations to be oppressed by it, but protected. In Great Britain it may truly be called the Profession of Honour. The discipline of no army is more strict, and the pay is moderate, yet mutiny is unheard of; and the British soldier is always ready to embark with chearfulness and spirit for climates the most distant, and the most perilous services. He never loses entirely his original tincture of a freeborn citizen. It can never be forgotten, that the generous shouts of a British army at Hounslow struck the first panick to the bigotted soul of James, who vainly imagined he could make them tools to extirpate the religion and liberty they were levied to defend.

? From the time of Marius and Sylla, the Roman legions were at the devotion of their particular leaders, and could not properly be said to belong to the republick. They fought for their general, Marius or Sylla, Cæsar or Pompey, Octavius or Anthony; and thus the government of Rome became military, the conqueror only being able to reward the courage and fidelity of his soldiers.

To close the scene of cruelty and pride, Hear, shuddering nature! how the tyrant died. His morbid trunk one universal sore,

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Myriads of vermin crawl'd from every pore ;1
Swept from their prey by cleansing care in vain,
The living plague soon peopled him again.
In loathsome anguish lingering long he lay,
Then groan'd at last his savage soul away;
And thus expir'd, with pestilential breath,
The proudest tyrant by the vilest death."

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995

MITHRIDATES.

A. U. C. 675. He resigned his dictatorship the preceding year, after having destroyed above 100,000 Roman citizens, and proscribed ninety senators, and two thousand six hundred knights.

Of all the tyrants who domineered over the Romans, (Tiberius excepted) Sylla appears to have been the most detestable. In the atrocious depravity of several of the emperors, there seems to be a mixture of madness and folly, which though not less pernicious to mankind in their consequences, render the persons somewhat less accountable; but Sylla was deliberate and circumspect, and all his horrible cruelties may be referred to some motive of pride, revenge, malignity, or self-interest. He besides set the first example of systematick oppression and inhumanity. Extirpation appeared to him to be the most compendious, and, therefore, the most eligible mode of establishing his usurped authority;

had

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