_--------Jam non ad culmina rerum_ _Injustos crevisse queror: tolluntur in altum_ _Ut lapsu graviore ruant._ XX. The upright politician, on the contrary, meets no dangers on his road, and has nothing to fear at his journey’s end. He is the more safe, the more the grounds of his conduct are displayed. He has fewer enemies than the other, because they can consist of none but bad people. In case he is overthrown, his fall will not be precipitate and violent, but soft and easy. His innocence will at least preserve his life; and the worst that can befal him, is being reduced to his former state; but it most commonly happens, that evil-intentioned people do not succeed in their attacks upon him, and that the shafts of their malice recoil and wound themselves, which oftentimes, affords honour and triumph to the party accused. The history of a politician of integrity, although an infidel by his religion, occurs to me at present, which is very applicable to the subject we are treating of. The relation is taken from Tavernier’s Voyages, and it being new and pleasant, I shall give a brief recital of it. XXI. Mahomed Alibeg, high steward to the King of Persia, was, from being a poor shepherd, raised to that elevated post, in the beginning of the last century. The King, one day when he was hunting, met with him in the mountains, where he was playing on his flute, and attending his flocks. For his amusement, he asked him some questions, and, taken with the vivacity and acuteness of the lad’s answers, he carried him with him to his palace; where having him instructed, the rectitude of his heart, and the clearness of his understanding, soon gained the affection and confidence of the King, who advanc’d him rapidly from charge to charge, till he at last placed him in the office of high steward. His inflexible integrity, and his aversion to bribes, a thing very rare among the Mahometans, raised him powerful enemies; but finding him so thoroughly possessed of the confidence of his master, they could not venture to act in a hostile way against him during the King’s life. After his death, when his successor who was a young man mounted the throne, they suggested to him, that Mahomet had subtracted vast sums from the Royal Treasury. The Prince ordered him to make up his accounts in fifteen days, to which Mahomet replied with intrepidity, that so much delay was not necessary, and that if his Majesty would be pleased to go with him immediately to the Treasury Office, he would there deliver them to him. The King went, followed by all the accusers, but he found every thing in such fine order, and the books of accounts so exactly and accurately stated, with which all other circumstances corresponded, that nobody had a word to say. From thence the King proceeded to Mahomet’s house, where he could not help admiring the moderation of the furniture, and the poverty of the decorations. One of the enemies of the favourite observing the door of