'Great toils and great perils are the portion of an officer of the Courts in giving effect to their sentences. It is easy for the Judge to say, "Let so and so be done;" but on the unhappy officer falls all the difficulty and all the odium of doing it. He has to track out offenders and hunt them to their very beds, to compel the contumacious to obey the law, to make the proud learn their equality before it. If he lingers over the business assigned to him, the plaintiff complains; if he is energetic, the defendant calls out. The very honesty with which he addresses himself to the work is sure to make him enemies, enemies perhaps among powerful persons, who next year may be his superiors in office, and thus subjects him to all sorts of accusations which he may find it very hard to disprove. In short, if we may say it without offence to the higher dignitaries, it is far easier to discharge without censure the functions of a Judge than those of the humble officer who gives effect to his decrees. 'Wherefore, in reward for your long and faithful service, and in accordance with ancient usage, we bestow on you the rank of a Count of the First Order, and ordain that if anyone shall molest you on account of your acts done in the discharge of your duties, he shall pay a fine of so many [perhaps ten = L400] pounds of gold.' [This letter will be found well worth studying in the original, as giving a picture of the kind of opposition met with by the men who were charged with the execution of the orders of the Rectores Provinciarum, and whose functions were themselves partly judicial, varying between those of a Master in Chancery and those of a Sheriff's officer. Throughout, the Civil Service is spoken of in military language. The officer is called _miles_, and his duty is _excubiae_.] 14. FORMULA BESTOWING RANK AS A SENATOR. [Sidenote: Senatorial rank.] 'We desire that our Senate should grow and flourish abundantly. As a parent sees the increase of his family, as a husbandman the growth of his trees with joy, so we the growth of the Senate. We therefore desire that Graius should be included in that virtuous and praiseworthy assembly[450]. This is a new kind of grafting, in which the less noble shoot is grafted on to the nobler stock. As a candle shines at night, but pales in the full sunlight, so does everyone, however illustrious by birth or character, who is introduced into your majestic body. Open your Curia, receive our candidate. He is already predestined to the Senate upon whom we have conferred the dignity of the Laticlave.' [Footnote 450: A conjectural translation of 'Sic nos virtutum jucundissimas laudes incinctum Graium desideramus includere.' Perhaps 'incinctum' means, 'though _not_ girded with the belt of office.' Graium must surely be a proper name, and this document is therefore, strictly speaking, not a 'Formula.'] 15. FORMULA OF THE VICARIUS OF THE CITY OF ROME. [Sidenote: Vicariate of the City of Rome.]