Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/69

 of their Orators (these Courtiers of Republicks, and endowed with the distinguishing Characters of all other Courtiers) this People, I say, at last arrived at that Pitch of Madness, that they coolly and deliberately, by an express Law, made it capital for any Man to propose an Application of the immense Sums squandered in publick Shows, even to the most necessary Purposes of the State. When you see the People of this Republick banishing or murdering their best and ablest Citizens, dissipating the publick Treasure with the most senseless Extravagance, and spending their whole Time, as Spectators or Actors, in playing, fidling, dancing and singing, does it not, my, strike your Imagination with the Image of a Sort of a complex Nero? And does it not strike you with the greater Horror, when you observe, not one Man only, but a whole City, grown drunk with Pride and Power, running with a Rage of Folly into the same mean and senseless Debauchery and Extrava-