nations so differing, so remote, so disaffected, so confusedly commanded,
and so unjustly conquered:

"Nec gentibus ullis
Commodat in populum, terra pelagique potentem,
Invidiam fortuna suam."

["Fortune never gave it to any nation to satisfy its hatred against
the people, masters of the seas and of the earth."--Lucan, i. 32.]

Everything that totters does not fall. The contexture of so great a body
holds by more nails than one; it holds even by its antiquity, like old
buildings, from which the foundations are worn away by time, without
rough-cast or mortar, which yet live and support themselves by their own
weight:

"Nec jam validis radicibus haerens,
Pondere tuta suo est."

Moreover, it is not rightly to go to work, to examine only the flank and
the foss, to judge of the security of a place; we must observe which way
approaches can be made to it, and in what condition the assailant is: few
vessels sink with their own weight, and without some exterior violence.
Now, let us everyway cast our eyes; everything about us totters; in all
the great states, both of Christendom and elsewhere, that are known to
us, if you will but look, you will there see evident menace of alteration
and ruin:

"Et sua sunt illis incommoda; parque per omnes
Tempestas."