fresh nations and fertilize a whole country. Their arches still stand gracing not the capital only and its vicinity, but the most remote provinces, and astonish travellers by their solidity and their elevation. Consider those bridges which eighteen centuries, aided by inundations and earthquakes, have not in many places even shaken; and see the Danube itself for once submitting to the yoke, and still respecting the traces of his subjection. See their almost interminable roads intersecting the immensity of the empire, from the borders of Persia to the Orcades, from the Tanais to the Nile, and opening a free communication through all parts of the civilized world. These are monuments which no other nation has left behind, monuments not of taste and art only, but of wisdom and benevolence, which claim not merely our admiration but our gratitude, and rank their authors among the best benefactors of mankind. Inventas qui vitam excoluere per artes Eneid vi. To apply this remark to works of genius would be to enter a field of criticism too extensive for the present work, but we may be allowed to assume that there is in all the great Roman authors, whether in verse or prose, a certain loftiness of thought peculiar to themselves, and very different from the terseness of the Greek, particularly the Attic writers. Majesty, though the characteristic of Virgil, and more eminently conspicuous in his divine poems, is yet strongly perceptible in Lucretius, Lucan, and Juvenal. The subjects of Horace and Ovid were not in general very susceptible of this quality, and yet even in them it occasionally transpires, and gives a certain weight and dignity to their nuga canora. Their muse is still the Roman muse, like Minerva reserved, and majestic even when playful. But this distinctive feature of the Roman mind is most apparent in the historians, for however different Sallust, Cæsar, Titus Livius, and Tacitus may be in style, yet there is in them all an elevation of thought, a boldness of sentiment, and a dignity of language, superior, I will not say, to modern historians, but even to the compositions of the Greeks, in every other respect so perfect. In perusing them the reader finds himself raised above the common level of human thought, and placed out of the reach of ordinary feelings; he is conversing with an intermediate race of beings, a species of heroes and demigods. Magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis. En. vi. Virtue, patriotism, benevolence, the love of his country, and of mankind, rise in his estimation, and engross his whole soul. Self-preservation and self-interest, the cares and the pleasures of life shrink in comparison into trifles almost beneath his attention. His heart glows as he reads, and every page he turns over makes him a better and fits him to be a greater man. But above even these exalted spirits, above all Greek and Roman fame, towers the immortal genius of Cicero, collecting in itself all the lights of human intellect, and scattering them over every subject on which it shines-Orator, Philosopher, and Statesman, and in all these characters unrivalled, he makes them all subservient to that of Roman and Consul, and whatever topic he treats, he never fails to display the spirit of the one, and the majesty of the other. The Greek philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, &c. passed their days, if not in absolute retreat, at least in learned leisure; speculation was the business of their lives, and their works were the result of a long life of study and reflection. Cicero devoted his youth only to study; his riper years he gave to the active duties of Roman magistracy, the direction of the senate, the management of the people, the command of legions, and the government of an empire. In the midst of these occupations, each of which seems sufficient to absorb all the time and engross all the attention of the most vigorous mind, he found leisure to plead the causes of his friends, to prescribe the laws of eloquence, and to sound the depths of philosophic inquiry. Thus he excelled his master Plato, and by uniting practice with theory, brought philosophy from the shades of retirement into public life, introduced her into the forum, and seated her in the senate. In perusing the varied compositions of this illustrious Roman, it is impossible not to feel and admire that national magnanimity, that senatorial and consular dignity which pervade them, ennobling every subject, whether public or private, literary or political; and communicating to the mind of the reader a congenial elevation and grandeur, well calculated to counteract the narrow contracted views and selfish passions of these degenerate days*. * Rousseau has ventured to call Cicero a mere rhetorician, and asks insultingly whether, without the writings of Plato, he would have been able to compose his Offices? Without doubt the Roman philosopher owed much to the sublime doctrines of Plato, and seldom omits an opportunity of acknowledging the obligation ; I have already alluded to the Roman laws, and will therefore confine myself at present to one single remark. The laws of the Greeks were either the result of the meditations of a particular legislator, Lycurgus, Solon, &c. or the dictates of some momentary emergency; not unfrequently the effusion of popular passions, and in most cases applicable only to the commonwealth or country for which they were originally enacted. Hence, though Liberty was in general their object, and so far their effects were beneficial; yet their duration was short, and their influence contracted. But the Roman code was compiled with the same view indeed, but on principles far more permanent and universal. It was founded not upon the convenience of the moment, nor upon the interest of one particular commonwealth, but upon the comprehensive basis of the law of nature, embracing alike all times and all places, and applicable to all governments and to all emergencies. Hence Cicero declares that the Twelve Tables contain a system of morality, superior, in his opinion, to the writings of all the philosophers, and but though a disciple of Plato he often surpasses his master, and gives substance and body to the refined and ideal visions of the Athenian. That very treatise De Officiis is an abridgment of morality more perfect and useful than any particular work of Plato. Surely his Epistles are not imitations of Plato, and yet they alone are sufficient to establish Cicero's reputation, and place him among the first of statesmen, and of authors. As for the contemptuous term rhetor, if Cicero was not an orator in the highest sense of the word, who ever was? But the eloquent Genevan loved singularity, and sought for it by paradoxes; he seems to have read but little of Cicero, and if we may credit the account he gives of his own education, could not have had a very perfect knowledge of Cicero's language. form a code of laws at the same time, that transcends all the institutions of the Grecian legislators*. Hence the Roman became the universal law, the code of nations, and to its prevalence over Europe we may perhaps in part ascribe the superior advantage in liberty and property which its inhabitants enjoyed during the darkness and barbarism of the middle ages. In fact, the Roman laws and language were the two great barriers that resisted and repelled the violence and ignorance of those savage times, and conveyed down to us the maxims and the sciences of the preceding more enlightened generations. Of that language I may now be expected to speak, but as I have treated the subject elsewhere, my remarks shall be few and cursory. It is a trite observation that the language of each nation is attuned to its feelings, habits, and manners, or in other words to its character; and it has consequently been remarked, that Italian is soft and musical; Spanish, stately; French, voluble; German, rough; and English short and pithy. To apply this common observation to the subject before us, the language of the ancient Romans is a manly and majestic dialect, full, expressive, and sonorous, and well adapted to the genius and the dignity of a magnanimous and imperial people. Inferior in some respects, but in the qualities just mentioned Fremant omnes licet, dicam quod sentio: bibliothecas mehercule omnium philosophorum, unus mihi videtur X11. tabularum libellus, si quis legum fontes et capita viderit, et auctoritatis pondere, et utilitatis ubertate superare, &c. De Orator. Lib. 1. 43, 44. |