[55]
And this is the golden hour of opportunity for a great minister to perpetrate great designs. Facility in general accompanies felicity, and no man can fay that the English do not seem to be a happy people. There was a cowardly sense of danger in the Roman republic, which we disdain to feel. They had confidence, it is true, in the midst of distress, but they were the most shamefully apprehensive people in the world. The historian tells you, that Rome shook to her center, upon the loss of a battle, even in Africa. Metus atque meror civitatem invasere, pars dolere pro gloria imperii, pars timere libertati, omnes tristitia invasit, festinare, trepidare, afflictare sese, omnia pavere, superbia atque deliciis omissis. You observe, Sir, that they feared even foreign calamity had endangered their domestic liberty, and considered their fame and freedom as blended together.
But with us—there is a noble negligence, a sort of generous contempt, and illustrious indifference to public measures and incidents, that tho' three thousand veteran troops were captured, three million of subjects lost to the crown, and thirteen colonies dismembered from the empire, all is frolic, and mirth, and gaiety—The commerce of perfumes at least does not slacken; nor is the elegent and liberal art of a
