Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/111

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¬supported, should in their morals and manners be assimilated; that they should not be buried like dogs, as if they were to sleep for ever, but be remembered by monumental inscriptions, recording the achievements of those who had lived before them, and reminding the living that their histories would be read by those who were to follow them — that societies, however wisely constructed, were subject nevertheless to be shaken by the follies and wickedness of man- kind, and that in those awful conjunctures the utmost fortitude became necessary to those who were to ride in such storms, yet tempered with a spirit of gentleness and mercy, shrinking back when called upon to strike, though justice and even necessity might demand the blow/ — He summed up all by a most eloquent reprobation of an unprincipled regicide, declaring in lan- guage which I hope will always be remembered, that the immolation of the unhappy prince whom fate had set upon this volcanic pinnacle, and who, without any crimes of his own, must, in the harshest construction, have been the vic- ¬h 3 tim ¬