Accident restored their liberty, and the same good fortune produced men of uncommon abilities and uncommon virtues amongst them.

But these abilities were suffered to be of little service either to their possessors or to the state.

Some of these men, for whose sakes alone we read their history, they banished; others they imprisoned, and all they treated with various circumstances of the most shameful ingratitude.

Republics have many things in the spirit of absolute monarchy, but none more than this.

A shining merit is ever hated or suspected in a popular assembly, as well as in a court; and all services done the state are looked upon as dangerous to the rulers, whether sultans or senators.