134 ANCIENT CASTLES OF DEVON. 



that makes the speed ; so in business, the keeping 

 close to the matter, and not greedily taking too 

 much of it at one time, procures dispatch." A just 

 and fair representation of objects, in their native 

 colour and aspect, is more striking and satisfactory 

 than a more eminent group of individuals reduced 

 in miniature, or indistinctly sketched in remote 

 perspective. A home scene grows more familiar 

 and engaging than a far spread and level landscape 

 that fades away in the verge of the distant horizon. 

 Private memoirs are more interesting than public 

 archives; and thus topography is more simple and 

 attractive than physical geography, or universal 

 history. 



When Maximus was sent by the Roman Em- 

 peror to administer the government of that noble 

 province, Achaia, the original and genuine Greece, 

 the primitive seat of learning and liberal arts ; 

 his friend Pliny wrote to enjoin on him, the gen- 

 erous observance of the customs and institutions of 

 its free cities : *^ revere the gods and heroes, their 

 founders, the glory of their ancient days, and even 

 that antiquity itself, for age, as it is venerable in 

 men, is in states sacred. Honor them therefore for 

 their deeds of old renown ; for those which true, 

 and, I do not scruple to add, which fabulous his- 

 tory has recorded. Reflect on the noble figure 

 these cities once made ; but so reflect, as not to 

 despise them for what they now are." Another 

 illustrious Roman, Sulpicious, in a celebrated epistle 

 to Cicero, expressed the solemn considerations 

 that occupied his thoughts in contemplating the 

 relics of departed grandeur, in the following terms : 

 — " In my return out of Asia, as I was sailing from 

 ^gina te wards Megara, on my right I saw Pirseeus, 

 and on my left Corinth : these cities, once so flou- 

 rishing and magnificent, now presented nothing to 

 my view but a sad spectacle of desolation. ^ Alas,' 

 I said to myself, ^ shall such a short-lived creature 

 * as man complain when one of his species falls 



