MY MOST HONOURED LORD.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP,

IT Was the speech of the Roman people (to whom the name
of king had been rendered odious, as well by the tyranny of the
Tarquins, as by the genius and decretals of that city) it was
the speech, I say, of the public, however pronounced from a
private mouth, (if yet Cato the censor were no more than
such) that all kings are to be reckoned amongst ravenous beasts.
But what a beast of prey was the Roman people, whilst with
its conquering eagles it erected its proud trophies so far and
wide over the world, bringing the Africans, the Asiatics, the
Macedonians, and the Achæans, with many other despoiled na-
tions, into a specious bondage, with the pretence of preferring
them to be denizens of Rome? So that if Cato's saying were
a wise one, it was every whit as wise that of Pontius Telesinus;
who flying about with open mouth through all the companies
of his army, (in that famous encounter which he had with
Sylla) cried out, that Rome herself, as well as Sylla, was to
be razed; for that there would always be wolves and depreda-
tors of their liberty, unless the forest that lodged them were
grubbed up by the roots. To speak impartially, both sayings
are very true; that man to man is a kind of God; and that man
to man is an arrant wolf. The first is true, if we compare
citizens amongst themselves; and the second, if we compare
cities. In the one, there is some analogy of similitude with

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