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34 À PANEGYRICE Hiftorians for an Account of paft Ages, we fhall find no Princes more Weak, nor any People more Slavifh and Wretched, than where the Adminiftration of Affairs fell on the Shoulders of fome Learned Bookiſh Governour. Of the Truth whereof the Two Catos are Exemplary Inſtances : The firſt of which Embroiled the City, and tired out the Senate by his tedious Harangues of defending himfelf, and accufing others ; the youmger was an unhappy Occafion of the Lofs of the Peoples Liberty, while by improper Methods he pretended to maintain it. To theſe may be added Brurus, Ca/fius, the Two Gracchi, and Cicero himfelf, who was no leſs Fatal to Rome, than his Parallel Demoſthenes was to Athens : As likewiſe Marcus Antoninus, whom vre may allow to have been a Good Emperor, yet the lefs fuch for his being a Philoſopher ; and certainly he did not do half that Kindnefs to his Empire by his own prudent Management of Affairs, as he did Miſchief by leaving fuch a’ Degenerate Succeffor as his Son Commodus proved to be. But it is a common Obſervation, that A Wife Father has many times a Foolifh Son, Nature fo contriving it, left the Taint of Wifdom, like Hereditary Diftempers, fhould otherwife deſcend by Propagation, Thus Zally's Son Marcus, though Bred at Athens, proved but a dull, infipid Soul; and Socrates his Children had (as one ingenioufly expreffes it) more of the Mother than the Father, [Fre XE} a Phrafe for their being Fools. However it were the more excufable, tho’ Wife Men are fo Aukward and Unhandy in the ordering of Publick
