Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/212

70 ''which is not always clean: You have chosen for your self a private Greatness, and will not be polluted with Ambition. It has been observ'd in former times, that none have been so greedy of Employments, and of managing the Publick, as they who have least deserv'd their Stations. But such only merit to be call'd Patriots, under whom we see their Country Flourish. I have laugh'd sometimes (for who wou'd always be a Heraclitus?) when I have reflected on those Men, who from time to time have shot themselves into the World. I have seen many Successions of them; some bolting out upon the Stage with vast applause, and others hiss'd off, and quitting it with disgrace. But while they were in action, I have constantly observ'd, that they seem'd desirous to retreat from Business: Greatness they said was nauseous, and a Crowd was troublesome; a quiet privacy was their Ambition. Some few of them I believe said this in earnest, and were making a provision against future want, that they might enjoy their Age with ease: They saw the happiness of a private Life, and promis'd to themselves a Blessing, which every day it was in their power to possess. But they deferr'd it, and linger'd still at Court, because they thought they had not yet enough to make them happy: They wou'd have more, and laid in to make their''