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138 should draw praises from the same fountain from which he had been aspersed. His capital passions were ambition, and love of pleasure; which he indulged in their turns to the greatest excess: yet the first was always predominant; to which he could easily sacrifice all the charms of the second, and draw pleasure even from toils and dangers, when they ministered to his glory. For he thought Tyranny, as Cicero says, the greatest of goddesses; and had frequently in his mouth a verse of Euripedes, which expressed the image of his soul, that if right and justice were ever to be violated, they were to be violated for the sake of reigning;. This was the chief end and purpose of his life; the scheme that he had formed from his early youth; so that, as Cato truly declared of him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the subversion of the republic. He used to say, that there were two things necessary, to acquire and support power—soldiers and money; which yet depended mutually upon each other: with money, therefore, he provided soldiers, and with soldiers extorted money; and was, of all men, the most rapacious in plundering both friends and foes; sparing neither prince, nor state, nor temple, nor even private persons, who were known to possess any share of treasure. His great abilities would necessarily have made him one of the first citizens of Rome; but, disdaining the condition of a subject, he could never rest till he made himself a monarch. In acting this last part, his usual prudence seemed to fail him; as if the height to which he was mounted, had turned his head, and made him giddy: for, by a vain ostentation of his power, he destroyed the stability of it: and as men shorten life by living too fast, so by an intemperance of reigning, he brought his reign to a violent end. [Middleton.]

to their extraction, years, and eloquence, they were pretty nigh equal. Both of them had the same greatness of mind, both the same degree of glory, but in different ways: Cæsar was celebrated for his great