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facts did not demonstrate, that the fame man can be at once the King's friend, and an enemy to all the King's earthly interests. How many men have acquired opulence, and maintained power in this country, upon this very principle, for the last twenty years!
A man that has talents, or thinks he has, should seek a scene of action by any means. What are abilities without the opportunity of exertion? Power is the medium, and every method to obtain power is sanctioned by the motive. Neque facto ullo, neque dicto abstinere, quod modo ambitiosum foret. Ambition (says a great poet) is the glorious fault of angels and of gods. Is there a reasonable man who can condemn Alberoni for the arts he practised, with a view to future greatness? Alberoni was even a pimp to the monstrous pleasures of the Duke de Vendome. Vendome placed Alberoni in that sphere whence he grew up into a prime minister of Spain, and in the very means of his exaltation, the man gave an earnest of the talents which in a few years afterwards blazed upon the world from the minister.—Instances of this sort are out of number.
Since society has been polished into the establishment of a court, how few have ever acquired political influence, or, acquiring, retained that
