Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/382

330 pride they conceive in seeing themselves at the head of a party; or as a method for advancement; or moved by certain powerful arguments that could make Demosthenes Philippize: for such men, I say, when the state would of itself gladly be quiet, and has, besides, affairs of the last importance upon the anvil, to impeach Miltiades after a great naval victory, for not pursuing the Persian fleet; to impeach Aristides, the person most versed among them in the knowledge and practice of their laws, for a blind suspicion of his acting in an arbitrary way, that is, as they expound it, not in concert with the people; to impeach Pericles, after all his services, for a few inconsiderable accounts; or to impeach Phocion, who had been guilty of no other crime but negotiating a treaty for the peace and security of his country: what could the continuance of such proceedings end in, but the utter discouragement of all virtuous actions and persons, and consequently in the ruin of a state? therefore the historians of those ages seldom fail to set this matter in all its lights, leaving us in the highest and most honourable ideas of those persons, who suffered by the persecution of the people, together with the fatal consequences they had, and how the persecutors seldom failed to repent, when it was too late.

These impeachments perpetually falling upon many of the best men both in Greece and Rome, are a cloud of witnesses, and examples enough to discourage men of virtue and abilities from engaging in the service of the publick; and help on the other side to introduce the ambitious, the covetous, the superficial, and the ill-designing; who are as apt to be bold, and forward, and meddling, as the Rh