whole building, than a single brick would be in the construction of
Hampton-Court Palace. When I had the sole possession (and I had it
often) of this vast range of seats, where emperors, empresses, Roman
knights, and matrons, have been so often seated, to see men die wantonly
by the hands of other men, as well as beasts for their amusement, I
could not but with pleasure reflect, how much human nature is softened
since that time; for notwithstanding the powerful prevalency of custom
and fashion, I do not think the ladies of the present age would _plume_
their towering heads, and curl their _borrowed_ hair, with that glee, to
see men murdered by missive weapons, as to die at their feet by deeper,
tho' less visible wounds. If, however, we have not those cruel sports,
we seem to be up with them in prodigality, and to exceed them in luxury
and licentiousness; for in Rome, not long before the final dissolution
of the state, the candidates for public employments, in spite of the
penal laws to restrain it, _bribed openly_, and were chosen sometimes
_by arms_ as well as money. In the senate, things were conducted no
better; decrees of great consequence were made when very few senators
were present; the laws were violated by private knaves, under the colour
of public necessity; till at length, _Cæsar_ seized the sovereign power,
and tho' he was slain, they omitted to recover their liberty, forgetting
that

"A day, an hour, of virtuous Liberty
Is worth a whole eternity of bondage."
_Addison's_ CATO.

I can almost think I read in the parallel, which I fear will soon be
drawn between the rise and fall of the British and Roman empire,
something like this;--"Rome had her CICERO; Britain her CAMDEN: Cicero,
who had preserved Rome from the conspiracy of _Catiline_, was banished: