the People's Afylum, the Bulwark of our Liberty, and the Pledge of our Re-union. In order to force the People's Confent, in order to perpetuate one Crime, he attempts another much greater. He dares even in a holy Place, and in the midft of the Senate, propofe to let the People die of Hunger. Cruel and unthinking Man at the fame Time! Did he not confider, that this People whom he meant to exterminate with fo much Inhumanity, and who are more numerous and powerful than he could wifh, being reduced to Despair, would have broken into the Houses, forced open thofe Granaries, and thofe Cellars which conceal fo much Wealth, and would rather have fallen under the Power of the Patricians, or have totally rooted out that whole Order? Could he imagine that an enraged Populace would in fuch a Cafe have hearkened to any Law, but what was dictated by Neceffity and Refentment?

For that you may not be unacquainted with the Truth, we would not have perifhed by a Famine brought upon us by our Enemies but having called to witnefs the Gods, Revengers of Injuftice, we would have filled Rome with Blood and Slaughter. Such had been the fatal Confequences of the Counfels of that perfidious Citizen, if fome Senators, who had more Love for their Country, had not hindered them from taking Effect. It is to you, Confcript Fathers, that we addrefs our juft Complaints. It is to your Aid, and to the Wisdom of your Decrees, that we have recourfe, to oblige this public Enemy to appear before the whole Roman People, and answer for his pernicious Counfels. It is there, Coriolanus, that thou muft defend thy former Sentiments, if thou dareft so to do, or excuse them as proceeding from want of Thought. Take my Advice; leave thy haughty and tyrannical Maxims; make thyfelf lefs; become like us; nay put on a Habit of Mourning, fo fuitable to thy prefent Fortune. Implore the Pity of thy Fellow-Citizens, and perhaps thou may'it obtain their Favour, and the Forgiveness of thy Faults.

LESSON

LESSON .V.

When Decius left off fpeaking, all the Senators waited, fome with impatient Defire, others with uneafy Apprehenfions, to hear how Appius Claudius would declare himself. This Appius was one of thofe Patricians who had always the most violently oppofed the Tribunitial Power. At its first Establishment he foretold the Senate, that they were fuffering a Tribunal to be fet up, which by Degrees would rife against their Authority, and at length deftroy it. When it came to his turn to speak, he deliver'd himself thus.

Yo

OU know, Confcript Fathers, that I have long oppofed, and frequently alone, that too great Eafinefs with which you grant the People whatever they demand. Perhaps I made myself troublesome, when I fo frankly laid before you the Misfortunes which I prefaged would follow, from our Re-union with the Deferters from the Commonwealth. The Event however has but too well juftified my Apprehenfions. That Share of Power which you yielded up to thofe feditious Men, is now turned against yourfelves. The People punish you by means of your own Benefactions; they take Advantage of your Favour to ruin your Authority. 'Tis in vain for you to attempt to hide from yourselves the Danger which the Senate is in; you cannot but fee there is a Defign to change the Form of our Government: The Tribunes make gradual Advances to the Tyranny. At firft the only Demand was the Abolition of the Debts; and this People, who are now fo haughty, and who endeavour to make themselves the fupreme Judges of the Senators, then thought they stood in need of a Pardon, for the disrespectful Manner in which they fued for that Conceffion.

Your Eafinefs gave occafion to new Pretenfions; the People would have their particular Magiftrates. You know how earnestly I oppofed thefe Innovations; but in fpight of all I could do, you affented in this Point alfo; you allowed the People to have Tribunes, that is to fay, perpetual Ringleaders of Sedition. Nay, the People intoxicated with Fury, would have this new Magiftracy confecrated in a particular Manner, such as had never been practifed, not even in favour of the Confulfhip, the first Dignity in the Republic. The Senate confented to every thing, not fo much out of

2

Kind

Kindness for the People, as want of Refolution; the Perfons of the Tribunes were declared facred and inviolable, and a Law made to that Effect. The People required that it should be confirmed by the most folemn Oaths; and that Day, O Fathers! you fwore upon the Altars the Deftruction of yourselves and Children. What has been the Fruit of all thefe Favours? They have only ferved to make you contemptible in the Eyes of the People, and to incrcafe the Pride and Infolence of their Tribunes, who have made to themfelves new Rights and Prerogatives. These modern Magiftrates, who ought to live as mere private Men, take upon them to convene the Assemblies of the People, and without our Privity procure Laws to be enacted by the Voices of a bafe Rabble.

It is fo odious a Tribunal that they now fummon a Patrician, a Senator, a Citizen of your Order; in a word, Coriolanus, that great Captain, and withal that good Man, yet more illuftrious for his Adherence to the Interefts of the Senate, than for his Valour. They prefume to make it a Crime in a Senator to speak his Opinion in full Senate, with that Freedom fo becoming a Roman; and if yourselves had not been his Buckler and Defence, they had affaffinated him even in your Prefence. The Majefty of the Senate was just going to be violated by this Murder; the Refpect due to your Dignity was forgot, and you yourselves were lofing both your Empire and your Liberty.

The Refolution and Courage which you fhewed upon this laft Occafion, in fome measure awakened these Madmen from their drunken Fit. They feem now to be afhamed of a Crime which they could not compleat; they defift from violent Methods, because they have found them unfuccefsful, and they feemingly have recourse to Justice, and the Rules of Law.

But what is this Juftice, immortal Gods! which these Men of Blood would introduce? They endeavour, by Appearances of Submiffion, to furprize you into a Senatus-Confultum, which may give them Power to drag the best Citizen of Rome to Punishment. They alledge the Lex Valeria as the Rule of your Conduct; but does not every body know, that this Law, which allows of Appeals to the Affembly of the People, relates only to fuch poor Plebeians, as being deftitute of all other Protection, might be opprelled by the Credit of a ftrong Cabal? The Text of the Law is plain; it exprefsly fays, that a Citizen condemned by the Confuls fhall have Liberty to appeal to the People. Poplicola, by this Law, only provided a Refuge for thofe unhappy Men, who had Reafon to complain of having been condemned by prejudiced Judges. The Defign of the

Law, was only to have their Caufes heard over again; and when you afterwards confented to the Creation of the Tribunes, neither you, nor even the People themselves, intended any thing more in the Establishment of those new Magistrates, than that this Law might have Protectors, and the Poor be provided with Advocates, who might prevent their being oppreffed by the Great. What Relation is there between such a Law, and the Cafe of a Senator, a Man of an Order fuperior to the People, and who is accountable for his Conduct to none but the Senate? To fhew that the Lex Valeria relates only to Plebeians; for about feventeen Years that it has been made, let Decius give me one fingle Inftance of a Patrician called in Judgment before the People by that Law, and our Dispute will be at an End. And indeed what Juftice would there be in delivering up a Senator to the Fury of the Tribunes, and to fuffer the People to be Judges in their own Caufe; as if their tumultuous Affemblies, directed by fuch feditious Magiftrates, could be without Prejudice, without Hatred, without Paffion? Thus, O Fathers, it is my Advice, that before you come to any Determination, you maturely confider, that in this Affair your Interefts are infeparable from thofe of Coriolanus. As to the reft, I am not for your revoking the Favours you have granted the People, by whatever means they obtained them; but I cannot forbear exhorting you to refufe boldly for the future whatever they fhall endeavour to obtain of you contrary to your own Authority, and the Form of our Go

vernment.

LESSON VI.

It appears from thefe two Speeches of Decius, and Appius, that the Bufinefs of Coriolanus was only used as a Colour to Affairs of greater Importance. The true Caufe of the Difpute and Animofity of the two Parties was this, That the Nobles and Patricians pretended a Right of Succeffion to the Regal Authority, upon the Expulfion of Tarquin, and that the Government ought to be purely Ariftocratic; whereas the Tribunes, by new Laws, endeavoured to turn it into a Democracy, and to bring the whole Authority into the Hands of the People. M. Valerius, an old experienced Senator, and a true Republican, difpleafed to fee thofe of his own Order conftantly af

fecting

fecting a Diftinction and Power, ever odious in a free State, Spoke as follows.

WE

E are made to fear, that the public Liberty will be in Danger, if we grant fo much Power to the People, and allow them to try thofe of our Order who shall be accufed by the Tribunes. I am perfuaded on the contrary, that nothing is more likely to preferve it. The Republic confifts of two Orders, Patricians and Plebeians; the Queftion is, Which of those two Orders may more fafely be trufted with the Guardianship of that facred Depofitum, our Liberty? I maintain, that it will be more fecure in the Hands of the People, who defire only not to be oppreffed, than in those of the Nobles, who all have a violent Thirst of Dominion. The Nobles, invefted with the prime Magiftracies, diftinguished by their Birth, their Wealth, and their Honours, will always be powerful enough to hold the People to their Duty; and the People, when they have the Authority of the Laws, being naturally Haters and jealous of all exalted Power, will watch over the Actions of the Great, and, by the Dread of a popular Fnquiry and Judgment, keep a Check upon the Ambition of fuch Patricians as might be tempted to afpire to the Tyranny. You abolished the Royalty, Confcript Fathers, because the Authority of a fingle Man grew exorbitant. Not fatisfied with dividing the fovereign Power between two annual Magiftrates, you gave them a Counfel of three hundred Senators, to be Infpectors over their Conduct, and Moderators of their Authority. But this Senate, fo formidable to the Kings and to the Confuls, has nothing in the Republic to ballance its Power. I know very well, that hitherto there is all the Reafon in the World to applaud its Moderation: But who can fay whether we are not obliged for this to our Fear of Enemies abroad, and to those continual Wars which we have been forced to maintain? Who will be anfwerable that our Succeffors, growing more haughty and more potent by a long Peace, fhall not make Attempts upon the Liberty of our Country, and that in the Senate there fhall not arife fome ftrong Faction, whofe Leader will find means to become the Tyrant of his Country, if there be not at the fame time fome other Power, out of the Senate, to withstand fuch ambitious Enterprizes, by impeaching the Authors and Abettors of them before the People?

Perhaps the Queftion will be afked me, Whether the fame. Inconveniency is not to be apprehended from the People, and whether it is poflible to make fufficient Provifion, that there

fhall