years, and disease, plague, pestilence, and famine never alter a man so
much as the loss of power."

"You say wisely; but what am I to gather from your words? is it all over
with us in real earnest?"

"Us! with /me/ it is indeed all over: /you/ may stay here forever. I
must fly: a packet-boat to Calais, or a room in the Tower, I must choose
between the two. I had some thoughts of remaining and confronting my
trial: but it would be folly; there is a difference between Oxford and
me. He has friends, though out of power: I have none. If they impeach
him, he will escape; if they impeach me, they will either shut me up
like a rat in a cage, for twenty years, till, old and forgotten, I tear
my heart out with my confinement, or they will bring me at once to the
block. No, no: I must keep myself for another day; and, while they
banish me, I will leave the seeds of the true cause to grow up till my
return. Wise and exquisite policy of my foes,--'/Frustra Cassium
amovisti, si gliscere et vigere Brutorum emulos passurus es.'* But I
have no time to lose: farewell, my friend; God bless you; you are saved
from these storms; and even intolerance, which prevented the exercise of
your genius, preserves you now from the danger of having applied that
genius to the welfare of your country. Heaven knows, whatever my
faults, I have sacrificed what I loved better than all things--study and
pleasure--to her cause. In her wars I served even my enemy Marlborough,
in order to serve her; her peace I effected, and I suffer for it. Be it
so, I am


"'Fidens animi atque in utrumque paratus.'**