flattered the poorest artisans, and carried a nomenclator with them,
to whisper in their ear every man's name, lest they should mistake
it in their salutations; they shook the hand, and kissed the cheek
of every popular tradesman; they stood all day at every market in
the public places, to show and ingratiate themselves to the rout;
they employed all their friends to solicit for them; they kept open
tables in every street; they distributed wine, and bread, and money,
even to the vilest of the people. En Romanos, rerum Dorninos!
Behold the masters of the world beginning from door to door. This
particular humble way to greatness is now out of fashion, but yet
every ambitious person is still in some sort a Roman candidate. He
must feast and bribe, and attend and flatter, and adore many beasts,
though not the beast with many heads. Catiline, who was so proud
that he could not content himself with a less power than Sylla's,
was yet so humble for the attaining of it, as to make himself the
most contemptible of all servants, to be a public bawd for all the
young gentlemen of Rome whose hot lusts, and courages, and heads, he
thought he might make use of. And since I happen here to propose
Catiline for my instance, though there be thousand of examples for
the same thing, give me leave to transcribe the character which
Cicero gives of this noble slave, because it is a general
description of all ambitious men, and which Machiavel perhaps would
say ought to be the rule of their life and actions. "This man,"
says he, as most of you may well remember, "had many artificial
touches and strokes that looked like the beauty of great virtues;
his intimate conversation was with the worst of men, and yet he
seemed to be an admirer and lover of the best; he was furnished with
all the nets of lust and luxury, and yet wanted not the arms of
labour and industry: neither do I believe that there was ever any
monster in nature, composed out of so many different and disagreeing