into the Hands
of a few, and that those few were factious, and were contending among
themselves, and, if you will pardon so mean an Expression, scrambling as
it were for Power; that _Caesar_ was reduc'd to the Necessity of ruling, or
himself obeying a Master; and that apprehending that another would
exercise the supreme Command without that Clemency and Moderation which he
did, he had rather chosen to rule than to obey. So that _Caesar_ was faulty
not so much in seizing upon the Sovereignty, which was become in a manner
necessary, as in not re-establishing the Commonwealth, by restoring the
_Agrarian_ and the Rotation of Magistracies, after he had got absolute and
uncontroulable Power. And if _Caesar_ had seiz'd upon the Sovereignty only
with a View of re-establishing Liberty, he had surpass'd all Mortals in
Godlike Goodness as much as he did in the rest of his astonishing
Qualities. I must confess, I do not remember that we have any Authority
from the _Roman_ Historians which may induce us to believe that _Caesar_
had any such Design. Nor if he had had any such View, could he, who was
the most secret, the most prudent, and the most discerning of Men, have
discover'd it before his _Parthian_ Expedition was over, for fear of
utterly disobliging his Veterans. And _Caesar_ believ'd that Expedition
necessary for the Honour and Interest of the State, and for his own Glory.

But of this we may be sure, that two of the most discerning of all the
_Romans_, and who had the deepest Insight into the Soul of _Caesar_,
_Sallust_ and _Cicero_, were not without Hopes that _Caesar_ would really
re-establish Liberty, or else they would not have attack'd him upon it;
the one in his Oration for _Marcus Marcellus_, the other in the Second
Part of that little Treatise _De Republica ordinanda_, which is address'd
to _Caesar_. _Haec igitur tibi reliqua pars, says Cicero, Hic restat Actus,
in hoc elaborandum est, ut Rempublicam constituas, eaque tu in primis
composita, summa Tranquillitate & otio perfruare. Cicero_ therefore was
not without Hope that _Caesar_ would re-establish the Commonwealth; and any
one who attentively peruses that Oration of _Cicero_, will find that that
Hope was reasonably grounded upon his knowledge of the great Qualities of
_Caesar_, his Clemency, his Beneficence, his admirable Discernment; and
that avoidless Ruine in which the whole Empire would be soon involv'd, if
_Caesar_ did not effect this. _Sallust_ urges it stil