CLap. 2.] THE FIRST WREATHS OF CORN AT ROME. 3 



prevent us from employing our energies or becoming useful to 

 our fellow-men; and the only enjoyment that is sought by 

 their abominable aspirations is centred in their universal hatre.d 

 of mankind. 



Still, however, even in this respect Nature has asserted her 

 majestic sway ; for how much more numerous 5 are the good 

 and estimable characters which she has produced ! just in the 

 same proportion -that we find her giving birth to productions 

 which are at once both salutary and nutritious to man. It is in 

 our high esteem for men such as these, and the commendations 

 they bestow, that we shall be content to leave the others, like 

 so many brakes and brambles, to the devouring flames of their 

 own bad passions, and to persist in promoting the welfare of 

 the human race ; and this, with all the more energy and per- 

 severance, from the circumstance that it has been our object 

 throughout, rather to produce a work of lasting utility than to 

 ensure ourselves a widely- spread renown. We have only to 

 speak, it is true, of the fields and of rustic operations ; but 

 still, it is upon these that the enjoyment of life so materially 

 depends, and that the ancients conferred the very highest rank 

 in their honours and commendations. 



CHAP. 2. (2.) WHEN THE FIKST WREATHS OF CORN WERE USED 



AT ROMK. 



Romulus was the first who established the Arval 6 priesthood 

 at Rome. This order consisted of the eleven sons of Acca 

 Larentia, his nurse, 7 together with Romulus himself, who as- 

 sumed the appellation of the twelfth of the brotherhood. Upon 

 this priesthood he bestowed, as being the most august dis- 

 tinction that he could confer upon it, a wreath of ears of corn, 

 tied together with a white fillet ; and this, in fact, was the 

 first chaplet that was ever used at Rome. This dignity is only 

 ended with life itself, and whether in exile or in captivity, it 



5 This sentiment is not at all akin to the melancholy view which our 

 author takes of mankind at the beginning of B. vii. and in other parts of 

 this work. It is not improbable that his censures here are levelled against 

 some who had endeavoured to impede him in the progress of his work. 



6 " Arvorum sacerdotes," the priests of the fields. 



7 Or foster-mother. It has been suggested that the Rogations of the 

 Roman church may have possibly originated in the Ambarvaiia, or cere- 

 monial presided over by the Arval priesthood. 



B 2 



