hat corporation who employed the
utmost means they had in their power to oblige me, both before they knew
me and after; and they did much more for me in choosing me anew than in
conferring that honour upon me at first. I wish them all imaginable
good; and assuredly had occasion been, there is nothing I would have
spared for their service; I did for them as I would have done for myself.
'Tis a good, warlike, and generous people, but capable of obedience and
discipline, and of whom the best use may be made, if well guided. They
say also that my administration passed over without leaving any mark or
trace. Good! They moreover accuse my cessation in a time when everybody
almost was convicted of doing too much. I am impatient to be doing where
my will spurs me on; but this itself is an enemy to perseverance. Let
him who will make use of me according to my own way, employ me in affairs
where vigour and liberty are required, where a direct, short, and,
moreover, a hazardous conduct are necessary; I may do something; but if
it must be long, subtle, laborious, artificial and intricate, he had
better call in somebody else. All important offices are not necessarily
difficult: I came prepared to do somewhat rougher work, had there been
great occasion; for it is in my power to do something more than I do, or
than I love to do. I did not, to my knowledge, omit anything that my
duty really required. I easily forgot those offices that ambition mixes
with duty and palliates with its title; these are they that, for the most
part, fill the eyes and ears, and give men the most satisfaction; not the
thing but the appearance contents them; if they hear no noise, they think
men sleep. My humour is no friend to tumult; I could appease a commotion
without commotion, and chastise a disorder without being myself
disorderly; if I stand in need of anger and inflammation, I borrow it,
and put it on. My manners are languid, rather faint than sharp. I do
not condemn a magistrate who sleeps, provided the people under his charge
sleep as well as he: the laws in that case sleep too. For my part, I
commend a gliding, staid, and silent life:

"Neque submissam et abjectam, neque se efferentem;"

["Neither subject and abject, nor obtrusive."
--Cicero, De Offic., i. 34]

my fortune will have it so. I am descended from a family that has lived
without lustre or tumult, and, time out of mind, particularly ambitious
o