to take care that my conduct be clear and unexceptionable. Besides, I am well aware, my countrymen, that the eye of the public is upon me: and that, though the impartial, who prefer the real advantages of the commonwealth to all other considerations, favour my pretensions, the patricians want nothing so much as an occasion against me. It is, therefore, my fixed resolution to use my best endeavours, that you be not disappointed in me, and that their indirect designs against me may be defeated. I have, from my youth, been familiar with toils and with dangers. I was faithful to your interest, my countrymen, when I served you for no reward but that of honour. It is not my design to betray you, now that you have conferred upon me a place of profit. You have committed to my conduct the war against Jugurtha. The patricians are offended at this. But where would be the wisdom of giving such a command to one of their honourable body-a person of illustrious birth, of ancient family, of innumerable statues, but of no experience? What service would his long line of dead ancestors, or his multitude of motionless statues, do his country in the day of battle? What could such a general do, but, in his trepidation and inexperience, have recourse to some inferior commander for direction in difficulties, to which he was not himself equal? Thus your patrician general would, in fact, have a general over him; so that the acting commander would still be a plebeian. So true is this, my countrymen, that I have myself known those who have been chosen consuls begin then to read the history of their own country, of which, till that time, they were totally ignorant; that is, they first obtained the employment, and then bethought themselves of the qualifications necessary for the proper discharge of it. I submit to your judgment, Romans, on which side the advantage lies, when a comparison is made between patrician haughtiness and plebeian experience. The very actions, which they have only read, I have partly seen, and partly myself achieved. What they know by reading I know by action. They are pleased to slight my mean birth. I despise their mean characters. Want of birth and fortune is the objection against me: want of personal wealth, against them. But are not all men of the same species? What can

make a difference between one man and another, but the endowments of the mind? For my part, I shall always look upon the bravest man as the noblest man. Suppose it were inquired of the fathers of such patricians as Albinus and Bestia, whether, if they had their choice, they would desire sons of their character, or of mine; what would they answer, but that they should wish the worthiest to be their sons? If the patricians have reason to despise me, let them likewise despise their ancestors, whose nobility was the fruit of their virtue. Do they envy the honours bestowed upon me? Let them envy, likewise, my labours, my abstinence, and the dangers I have undergone for my country, by which I have acquired them. But those worthless men lead such a life of inactivity, as if they despised any honours you can bestow, while they aspire to honours as if they had deserved them by the most industrious virtue. They arrogate the rewards of activity, for their having enjoyed the pleasures of luxury. Yet none can be more lavish than they are in praise of their ancestors; and they imagine they honour themselves by celebrating their forefathers, whereas, they do the very contrary. For, as much as their ancestors were distinguished for their virtues, so much are they disgraced by their vices. The glory of ancestors casts a light, indeed, upon their posterity; but it only serves to show what the descendants are. It alike exhibits to public view their degeneracy, and their worth. I own I cannot boast of the deeds of my forefathers; but I hope I may answer the cavils of the patricians, by standing up in defence of what I have myself done. Observe now, my countrymen, the injustice of the patricians. They arrogate to themselves honours on account of the exploits done by their forefathers, while they will not allow me the due praise for performing the very same sorts of actions in my own person. He has no statues, they cry, of his family. He can trace no venerable line of ancestors. What then! Is it matter of more praise to disgrace our illustrious ancestors, than to become illustrious by our own good behaviour? What if I can show no statues of my family! I can show the standards, the armour, and the trappings, which I have myself taken from the vanquished; I can show the scars

of those wounds which I have received by facing the enemies of my country. These are my statues. These are the honours I boast of; not left me by inheritance, as theirs, but earned by toil, by abstinence, by valour, amidst clouds of dust and seas of blood-scenes of action, where those effeminate patricians, who endeavour, by indirect means, to depreciate me in your esteem, have never dared to show their faces.

GALGACUS TO THE CALEDONII,

TO INCITE THEM TO ACTION AGAINST THE ROMANS.

WHEN I reflect on the causes of the war, and the circumstances of our situation, I feel a strong persuasion, that our united efforts on the present day will prove the beginning of universal liberty to Britain. For none of us are hitherto debased by slavery; and we have no prospect of a secure retreat behind us, either by land or sea, while the Roman fleet hovers around. Thus the use of arms, which is at all times honourable to the brave, here offers the only safety even to cowards. In all the battles which have yet been fought with various success against the Romans, the resources of hope and aid were in our hands; for we, the noblest inhabitants of Britain, and therefore stationed in its deepest recesses, far from the view of servile shores, have preserved even our eyes unpolluted by the contact of subjection. We, at the farthest limits both of land and liberty, have been defended to this day by the obscurity of our situation, and of our fame. The extremity of Britain is now disclosed; and whatever is unknown becomes an object of importance. But there is no nation beyond us, nothing but waves and rocks; and the Romans are before us. The arrogance of these invaders it will be in vain to encounter by obsequiousness and submission. These plunderers of the world, after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean; stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West; the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter,

to usurp under false titles, they call Empire; and when they make a desert, they call it Peace.

Our children and relations are, by the appointment of Nature, rendered the dearest of all things to us. These are torn away by levies to foreign servitude. Our wives and sisters, though they should escape the violation of hostile force, are polluted under the names of friendship and hospitality. Our estates and possessions are consumed in tributes; our grain in contributions. Even the powers of our bodies are worn down, amid stripes and insults, in clearing woods and draining marshes. Wretches, born to slavery, are first bought, and afterwards fed by their masters. Britain continually buys, continually feeds her own servitude. And, as among domestic slaves, every new comer serves for the scorn and derision of his fellows, so. in this ancient household of the world, we, as the last and vilest, are sought out for destruction. For we have neither cultivated lands, nor mines, nor harbours, which can induce them to preserve us for our labours; and our valour and unsubmitting spirit will only render us more obnoxious to our imperious masters; while the very remoteness and secresy of our situation, in proportion as it conduces to security, will tend to inspire suspicion. Since, then, all hopes of forgiveness are vain, let those, at length, assume courage to whom glory, to whom safety is dear. The Brigantines, even under a female leader, had force enough to burn the enemy's settlements, to storm their camps; and if success had not introduced negligence and inactivity, would have been able entirely to throw off the yoke. And shall not we, untouched, unsubdued, and struggling not for the acquisition, but the continuance of liberty, declare, at the very first onset, what kind of men Caledonia has reserved for her defence?

Can you imagine that the Romans are as brave in war as they are as insolent in peace? Acquiring renown from our discords and dissensions, they convert the errors of their enemies to the glory of their own army-an army compounded of the most different nations, which, as success alone has kept together, misfortune will certainly dissipate. Unless, indeed, you can suppose that Gauls, and Germans, and (I blush to say it) even Britons, lavishing their blood

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for a foreign state, to which they have been longer foes than subjects, will be retained by loyalty and affection. Terror and dread alone, weak bonds of attachment, are the ties by which they are restrained; and when these are once broken, those who cease to fear will begin to hate. Every incitement to victory is on our side. The Romans have no wives to animate them, no parents to upbraid their flight. Most of them have either no habitation, or a distant one. Few in number, ignorant of the country, looking around in silent horror at the woods, seas, and a haven itself unknown to them, they are delivered by the gods, as it were, imprisoned and bound, into our hands. Be not terrified with an idle show, and the glitter of silver and gold, which can neither protect nor wound. In the very ranks of the enemy we shall find our own bands. The Britons will acknowledge their own cause; the Gauls will recollect their former liberty; the Germans will desert them, as the Usipii have lately done. Nor is there anything formidable behind them: ungarrisoned forts, colonies of invalids, municipal towns distempered and distracted, between unjust masters and illobeying subjects. Here is your general, here your army; there, tributes, mines, and all the train of servile punishments, which, whether to bear eternally, or instantly to revenge, this field must determine. March, then, to battle, and think of your ancestors and your posterity.

HANNIBAL TO HIS SOLDIERS.

I KNOW not, soldiers, whether you or your prisoners be encompassed by fortune with the stricter bonds and necessities. Two seas enclose you on the right and left; not a ship to flee to for escaping. Before you is the Po, a river broader and more rapid than the Rhone; behind you are the Alps, over which, even when your numbers were undiminished, you were hardly able to force a passage. Here, then, soldiers, you must either conquer or die, the very first hour you meet the enemy. But the same fortune,