He was wont to say, that of all his qualities, he most valued his firmness of purpose (_̓ αδιατρεψία_). The judgment was in one sense correct: this was indeed the predominant feature of his character. But it was the firmness not of principle, not even of policy, but of obstinate and entire selfishness, which regarded not the weightiest interests of others when placed in opposition to its caprices; of habitual self–indulgence, which gratified the whim of the moment, alike careless of its folly or of its guilt. At first he would not, in the end he probably could not, control his passions; and this inflexibility is the symptom of that mental disease which we believe to originate in uncontrolled power. This plea furnishes no particle of excuse for him, no more than drunkenness for the excesses of the drunkard: in both the loss of reason is a crime in itself, and in neither probably is it ever so complete as to obliterate the perception of right and wrong. Of genuine madness we find no trace in his life. He appears to have been subject to no delusions upon particular subjects, to no access either of frenzy or melancholy. As a boy he, as well as Cambyses, was subject to epileptic fits, which were supposed to have impaired his mind; and he entertained, it is said, doubts of his own sanity, and had thoughts of submitting to a course of medicine for his recovery. Others thought that a love potion, administered by his wife to fix affection, had produced madness; but the tenor of his life countenances neither supposition. Folly, selfishness, cruelty, and the restlessness of a self–upbraiding spirit cannot be allowed shelter under the plea of insanity; and the mental weakness and incapacity of self–control which arises from the habitual dominion of passion, is no less widely different in its effects than in its origin from that which is dependent upon physical causes. He perished by domestic conspiracy, in the fourth year of his reign and the twenty–ninth of his age. He oppressed the people and the nobility with impunity: he fell, when his jealous temper rendered him formidable to his servants and favourites.