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Meantime, in these few words lies naked to the day, in its whole hideous deformity, the very essence of Romanism and the imperatorial power, and one might here consider the mother of Nero as the impersonation of that monstrous condition." This is true: Occidat dum imperet, was the watchword and very cognizance of the Roman imperator. But almost equally it was his watchword Occidatur dum imperet.

Such an end, many years previously, this sister, and wife, and mother of emperors had anticipated and despised; for when the Chaldaeans had assured her that her son would become Emperor, and would murder her, she is said to have exclaimed, "Occidat dum imperet," "Let him slay me if he but reign."

It was a good beginning to make gods and demons the authors of their science, and to have used a peculiar way of speaking and writing, notwithstanding that philosophy concludes it folly to persuade a man to his own good by an unintelligible way: "Ut si quis medicus imperet, ut sumat:" "Terrigenam, herbigradam, domiportam, sanguine cassam."

Juvenal, indeed, gives us a noble picture of inflexible virtue: Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem Integer: ambiguae si quando citabere testis, Incertaeque rei, Phalaris licet imperet, ut sis Falsus, et admoto dictet perjuria tauro, Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori, Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. Be thou; thy station deem a sacred trust.

"Esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem Integer: ambiguae si quando citabere testis, Incertaeque rei, Phalaris licet imperet ut sis, Falsus, et admoto dictet perjuria tauro, Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori, Et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas ."

At this rate, agriculture was an honour to Cyrus, and eloquence and the knowledge of letters to Charlemagne. Demosthenes' companions in the embassy to Philip, extolling that prince as handsome, eloquent, and a stout drinker, Demosthenes said that those were commendations more proper for a woman, an advocate, or a sponge, than for a king': "Imperet bellante prior, jacentem Lenis in hostem."

Agrippina would scarce have heard it with patience. Moriar modo imperet! said that empress, in her wild wish of crowning her son: but had he, unprovoked, aspersed her honour in the open forum, would the mother have submitted to so unnatural an insult? In Richard's case the imputation was beyond measure atrocious and absurd. What! taint the fame of his mother to pave his way to the crown!

There is a remarkable story told of Agrippina, that, upon some occasion, when a wizard announced to her, as truths which he had read in the heavens, the two fatal necessities impending over her son, one that he should ascend to empire, the other that he should murder herself, she replied in these stern and memorable words Occidat, dum imperet.