The Adventures of Telemachus, the Son of Ulysses; From the French (Etc.) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1795 edition. Excerpt: ... wisdom are bounded by his nature; he has humours, passions, and habits, which it is impossible he should always surmount; he is continually beset by self-interest and cunning; he never finds the assistance that he seeks; he is perpetually led into mistakes, sometimes by his own passions, and sometimes by those of his ministers; and can scarce repair one fault, before he falls into another. Such is the situation, even of those kings, who have most wisdom, and most virtue; and the longest and best reign is too short and too defective, to correct, at the end, what has undesignedly been done amiss in the beginning. Such evils are inseparable from royalty; and human weakness must sink under such a load. Kings should be pitied and excused: should not they be pitied, who are called to the government of an innumerable multitude, whose wants are infinite, and who cannot but keep every faculty of those who would govern them well, upon the stretch? Or, to speak freely, are not men to be pitied for their necessary subjection to a mortal like themselves? A God only can fulfil the duties of dominion. The prince, however, is not less to be pitied than the people; a weak and imperfect creature, the governor of a corrupt and deceitful multitude " "But, said Telemachus with some vivacity, Idomeneus has already lost Crete, the kingdom of his ancestors, by his indiscretion; and he would have lost Salentum, which he is founding in its stead, if it had not been preserved by your wisdom." "I confess, replied Mentor, that Idomeneus has been guilty of great faults: but look though Greece, and every other country upon earth, and see, whether among those that are most improved, you can find one prince that is not, in many instances, inexcusable. The...