Excerpt from Ambition and Luxury: A Poetical Epistle Luxury and Ambition realtumed; and the affirmation, that Ln Kul'yxury is the molt pernicious, Qilluftrated by the downfal of the Rates of Athens and of Rome. Though Ambition and the love of rapine may be immediate caufes of the fall of (tates; though thefe pallions incited Philip 'in his'in'vafion bf Greece, and the northern nations in their attack on the Roman empire i yet nei ther the Macedonians nor the Goths could have vanquifhed A thens and Rome, had not the fpirit of thefe {tates been already broken, and had not the love of Pleafure rendered them the prey. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.