When the former had with fire and sword overrun a vast empire, had
destroyed the lives of an immense number of innocent wretches, had
scattered ruin and desolation like a whirlwind, we are told, as an
example of his clemency, that he did not cut the throat of an old
woman, and ravish her daughters, but was content with only undoing
them. And when the mighty Caesar, with wonderful greatness of
mind, had destroyed the liberties of his country, and with all the
means of fraud and force had placed himself at the head of his
equals, had corrupted and enslaved the greatest people whom the
sun ever saw, we are reminded, as an evidence of his generosity,
of his largesses to his followers and tools, by whose means he had
accomplished his purpose, and by whose assistance he was to
establish it.

Now, who doth not see that such sneaking qualities as these are
rather to be bewailed as imperfections than admired as ornaments
in these great men; rather obscuring their glory, and holding them
back in their race to greatness, indeed unworthy the end for which
they seem to have come into the world, viz. of perpetrating vast
and mighty mischief?

We hope our reader will have reason justly to acquit us of any
such confounding ideas in the following pages; in which, as we are
to record the actions of a great man, so we have nowhere mentioned
any spark of goodness which had discovered itself either faintly
in him, or more glaringly in any other person, but as a meanness
and imperfection, disqualifying them for undertakings which lead
to honour and esteem among men.

As our hero had as little as perhaps is to be found of that