Hath overta’en my act.
(i. ix. 15.)
He cherishes a transcendent idea of the state, and is wounded to the heart that its members fall short of it.
I would they were barbarians—as they are,
Though in Rome litter’d—not Romans—as they are not,
Though calved i’ the porch o’ the Capitol.
(iII. i. 238.)
And he is similarly, but more closely bound up in his own order. The nobles, the patricians, the senate, are to him the core of the commonwealth, the very Rome of Rome. They are, as he says, “the fundamental part of state” (iii. i. 151). His first thought on his return from the campaign is to pay his due respects to their dignity:
Ere in my own house I do shade my head,
The good patricians must be visited.