Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Treason
For while the treason I detest,
The traitor still I love.
Hoole’s Metastatio.—Romulus and Hersilia, Act I. Scene 5.
I love the fruit that treason brings,
But those that are the traitors, them I hate.
Anonymous.—Selimus, an Old Play.
He that loves the treason hates the traitor.
Quarles.—Enchiridion, 4.
Yet always pity where I can,
Abhor the guilt, but mourn the man.
Cotton.—To the Reader.
Let them call it mischief;
When it is past, and prosper’d, ’twill be virtue.
Ben Jonson.—Catiline, Act III. Scene 3.
[Resolution is the name given to successful treason and rebellion.—Riley’s Class. Dict. 348; hence the English epigram—
Treason does never prosper: what’s the reason?
Why, when it prospers, none dare call it treason.
Sir John Harrington.]