Page:Secret History of the Court of the Emperor Justinian 1674.djvu/80

 During the Reign of this Prince, there was no established Faith or Religion; no Contracts or Agreements of which, any Man could be se­cure. When he committed an affair to any of his Friends, he, who in the shortest time, ruined the persons he was imployed to destroy, and re­turned him the most spoil, he was the welcome man to him, as having acted most unto his designs, and private instructions: But those who were tender, and unwilling to do any man mischeif, those he abhorred when they came back, and not enduring that old merciful way which savored too much of the old Roman, (which he used to call lazy and phlegmatick) he never preferred them to any imployment after­wards.

In compliance with him, many persons affect­ed to seem bad, and leud in their conversation, though their temper and judgments were quite contrary to what they professed. He pretended to forget what Contracts he had made, though they were sealed and signed some of them with his own hand, and thought it very honorable. And this he did, not only with his own Sub­jects, but with the Enemies of the Empire, as I have delivered at large in my other Books.

He never could endure to be idle; he never eat or drunk as much as he could, but touched the meat, which they set before him, with the end of his fingers, and then bid them take a­way, for he had eaten enough: Besides, the violence of his nature obliging him to be more fierce and insatiable in his business, he did not eat