or affect our thriving private
interest. Such is often the effect of too great, of too secure
prosperity. Therefore, prosperity alone affords yet no security.

You remember the tale of Polycrates. He was the happiest of men; good
luck attended every one of his steps; success crowned all he undertook,
and a friend thus spoke to him: "Thou art too happy for thy happiness to
last. Appease the anger of the Eumenides by a voluntary sacrifice, or
deprive thyself of what thou most valuest among all that thou
possessest." Polycrates obeyed, and drew from his finger a precious
jewel, of immense value, dear to his heart, and threw it into the sea.
Soon after a fish was brought to his house, and his cook found the
precious ring in the belly of the fish; but the friend who advised him
hastened to flee from the house, and shook the dust of its threshold
from his shoes, because he feared a great mischief must fall upon that
too prosperous house. There is a deep meaning in that tale of
Polycrates.

Machiavel says, that it is now and then necessary to recall the
constituting essential principles to the memory of nations. And who is
charged by Providence with this task? Misfortune! It was the battles of
Cannae and of Thrasymene which recalled the Romans to the love of their
fatherland; nations had till now, about such things, no other teacher
than misfortune. They should choose to have a less afflicting one. They
can have it. To point this out will be the final object of my remarks,
but so much is certain, that prosperity alone is yet no security for the
future, even of the happiest commonwealth. Those ancient nations have
been also prosperous. They were industrious, as your nation is; their
land has been covered with cities and villages, well-cultivated fields,
blessed with the richest crops, and crowded with countless herds spread
over immense territories, furrowed with artificial roads; their
flourishing cities swarmed with artists, and merchants, and workmen, and
pilots, and sailors, like as New York does. Their busy labourers built
gigantic water-works, digged endless canals, and carried distant waters
through the sands of the desert; their mighty, energetic spirit built
large and secure harbours, dried the marshy lakes, covered the sea with
vessels, the land with living beings, and spread a creation of life and
movement along the earth. Their commerce was broad as the known world.
Tyre exchanged its purple for the silk of Serica