But this is indeed a Spartan combing and curling, that the author is falling to, in the introductory flourishes ('diversions' as he calls them) of this great adventure, that his pen is out for now: he is indeed upon the point of running headlong into the fiercest dangers;--it is the state, the wretched, discased, vicious state, dying apparently, yet full of teeth and mischief, that he is about to handle in his argument with these fine, lightsome, frolicsome preparations of his, without any perceptible 'mittens'; it is the heart of that political evil that his time groans with, and begins to find insufferable, that he is going to probe to the quick with that so delicate weapon. It is a tilt against the block and the rack, and all the instruments of torture, that he is going to manage, as handsomely, and with as many sacrifices to the graces, as the circumstances will admit of. But the political situation which he describes so boldly (and we have already seen what it is) affects us here in its relation to the question of style only, and as the author himself connects it with the point of our inquiry. 'A man may regret,' he says, 'the better times, but cannot fly from the present, we may wish for other magistrates, but we must, notwithstanding, obey those we have; and, peradventure, it is more laudable to obey the bad than the good, so long as the image of the ancient and received laws of this monarchy shall shine in any corner of the kingdom. If they happen, unfortunately, to thwart and contradict one another, so as to produce two factions of doubtful choice,'-- And my soul aches To know, [says Coriolanus] when two authorities are up, Neither supreme, how soon confusion May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take The one by the other. --'in this contingency will willingly choose,' continues the other, 'to withdraw from the tempest, and in the meantime, _nature or the hazards of war may lend me a helping hand_. Betwixt Cæsar and Pompey, I should soon and frankly have declared myself, but amongst the three robbers that came after, a man must needs _have either hid himself_, or have gone along with the current of the time, _which I think a man may lawfully do, when reason no longer rules_.' '_Whither_ dost thou wandering go?'