every one carrying back this resolution in his mind, that the oldest and
best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was, new and
untried.

Seeing how miserably we are agitated (for what have we not done!)

"Eheu! cicatricum, et sceleris pudet,
Fratrumque: quid nos dura refugimus
AEtas? quid intactum nefasti
Liquimus? Unde manus inventus
Metu Deorum continuit? quibus
Pepercit aris."

["Alas! our crimes and our fratricides are a shame to us! What
crime does this bad age shrink from? What wickedness have we left
undone? What youth is restrained from evil by the fear of the gods?
What altar is spared?"--Horace, Od., i. 33, 35]

I do not presently conclude,

"Ipsa si velit Salus,
Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam;"

["If the goddess Salus herself wish to save this family, she
absolutely cannot"--Terence, Adelph., iv. 7, 43.]

we are not, peradventure, at our last gasp. The conservation of states
is a thing that, in all likelihood, surpasses our understanding;--a civil
government is, as Plato says, a mighty and puissant thing, and hard to be
dissolved; it often continues against mortal and intestine diseases,