The compleat courtier: or, The morals of the famous historian Cornelius Tacitus concerning flattery, &c. In above one hundred essays. Paraphras'd and illustrated with useful observations by the Sieur Amelo de la Houssaie and M. D'Ablancourt. Done out of French.

About this Item

Title
The compleat courtier: or, The morals of the famous historian Cornelius Tacitus concerning flattery, &c. In above one hundred essays. Paraphras'd and illustrated with useful observations by the Sieur Amelo de la Houssaie and M. D'Ablancourt. Done out of French.
Author
Tacitus, Cornelius.
Publication
London: Printed, and are to be sold by E. Rumball, at the Post-house in Russel-street in Covent-Garden,
1700.
Rights/Permissions

To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.

Subject terms
Etiquette -- Early works to 1800.
Link to this Item
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A62449.0001.001
Cite this Item
"The compleat courtier: or, The morals of the famous historian Cornelius Tacitus concerning flattery, &c. In above one hundred essays. Paraphras'd and illustrated with useful observations by the Sieur Amelo de la Houssaie and M. D'Ablancourt. Done out of French." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A62449.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 15, 2024.

Pages

ESSAY XXXVIII.

NEither was it the Care of the Senate, to prevent loss of Honour upon the Frontiers of the Empire. An inward Consternation had possess'd their Spirits, for which the only remedy they could provide was Flattery. So that altho' they had several Affairs of higher Impor∣tance that requir'd their Debates, they decreed an Altar to Clemency, another to Friendship, and Statues to Caesar and Sejanus round about.

Says D'Ablancourt, The Senate troubl'd and amus'd with inward fears, neglected the Frontiers of the Empire; and to shelter themselves under some signal piece of Flat∣tery, never minding those more Important Affairs which they had under their Conside∣ration,

Page 77

decreed Altars to Clemency and Friendship, and Statues to the Emperour and Sejanus.

Under evil Princes the Grandees take little Care of the Public Misfortunes, as being solely imploy'd to secure them∣selves. The more in fear Men are, the more they abandon themselves to Flat∣tery. Especially those Persons that live at Court, or else have high Employments to lose; in regard their Advancement, exposes them to greater Dangers then others. And then again, when a Prince dissembles the bad Condition of his Af∣fairs, then it is that he is Flatter'd most of all; every one affecting to shew his absolute reliance upon the Fortune and the Prudence of his Prince.

Do you have questions about this content? Need to report a problem? Please contact us.