THESEUS AND ROMULUS. 79

tured, in offering himself voluntarily with young boys and virgins, as part of the tribute unto Crete, either to be a prey to a monster or a victim upon the tomb of Andro- geus, or, according to the mildest form of the story, to live vilely and dishonorably in slavery to insulting and cruel men ; it is not to be expressed what an act of cou- rage, magnanimity, or justice to the public, or of love for honor and bravery, that was. So that methinks the phi- losophers did not ill define love to be the provision of the gods for the care and preservation of the young ; for the love of Ariadne, above all, seems to have been the proper work and design of some god in order to preserve The- seus ; and, indeed, we ought not to blame her for loving him, but rather wonder all men and women were not alike affected towards him ; and if she alone were so, truly I dare pronounce her worthy of the love of a god, who was herself so great a lover of virtue and goodness, and the bravest man. Both Theseus and Romulus were by nature meant for governors ; yet neither lived up to the true character of a king, but fell off, and ran, the one into popularity, the other into tyranny, falling both into the same fault out of different passions. For a ruler's first end is to main- tain his office, which is done no less by avoiding what is unfit than by observing what is suitable. Whoever is either too remiss or too strict is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and so be- comes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though certainly the one seems to be the fault of easiness and good-nature, the other of pride and severity. If men's calamities, again, are not to be wholly imputed to fortune, but refer themselves to differences of charac- ter, who will acquit either Theseus of rash and unreason- able anger against his son, or Romulus against his brother ?

Looking at motives, we more easily excuse the anger