Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 6.djvu/253

Rh benevolence for mankind, in every lineament of his countenance. I observed with much pleasure, that these two persons were in good intelligence with each other; and Cæsar freely confessed to me, that the greatest actions of his own life were not equal, by many degrees, to the glory of taking it away. I had the honour to have much conversation with Brutus; and was told, that his ancestor Junius, Socrates, Epaminondas, Cato the younger, Sir Thomas More, and himself were perpetually together: a sextumvirate, to which all the ages of the world cannot add a seventh.

It would be tedious to trouble the reader with relating, what vast numbers of illustrious persons were called up, to gratify that insatiable desire I had, to see the world in every period of antiquity placed before me. I chiefly fed mine eyes with beholding the destroyers of tyrants and usurpers, and the restorers of liberty, to oppressed and injured nations. But it is impossible to express the satisfaction I received in my own mind, after such a manner, as to make it a suitable entertainment to the reader.

AVING a desire to see those ancients, who were most renowned for wit and learning, I set apart one Rh