young Republic, a set of worn-out, lewd, and greedy nobles. By these, the
spoils of the world were appropriated, and its government abused: Caesar
gave the helpless peoples a legal sovereign, and preserved them from the
lawless tyranny of a thousand masters. He narrates himself, that "he found
the Romans enslaved by a faction, and he restored their liberty:" "Caesar
interpellat; ut Populum Romanum, paucorum factione oppressum, in
libertatem vindicat." The march of Caesar into Italy was a triumphal
progress; and there can be no doubt, that the common people received him
gladly. Again he says, "Nihil esse Rempublicam; appellationem modo, sine
corpore et specie;" "The Republic is nothing but an empty name, a phantom
and a shadow." That Caesar should have seen this, is the highest evidence
of his genius: that Cicero did not see it, is to himself, and to his
country, the great misfortune of his career; and to his admirers, one of
the most melancholy events in Roman history. The opinions of Tacitus were
not far removed from the opinions of Cicero, but they were modified by
what he saw of Nerva and of Trajan: he tells us, how Agricola looked
forward to the blessings of a virtuous Prince; and his own thoughts and
writings would have been other, than they are, had he witnessed the
blameless monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines. The victims of a bad
Emperor were taken usually from among the nobles; many of them were little
better, than their destroyer; and his murders were confined, almost
invariably, within the walls of Rome: but the benefits of the Imperial
system were extended into all the provinces; and the judgment-seat of
Caesar was the protection of innumerable citizens. Many were the mistakes,
many the misfortunes, deplorable the mischiefs, of the Imperial
administration; I wish neither to deny, nor to conceal them: but here I
must content myself with speaking broadly, with presenting a superficial
view of things; and, upon the whole, the system of the Emperors was less
bad than the decayed and inadequate government, out of which it was
developed. For the change from the Republic to the Empire was hardly a