INTRODUCTION. 47 



or rather contempt, of all the elegant improvements of life. War, 

 politics, and agriculture, were the only arts they studied, because 

 they were the only arts they esteemed. But upon the downfal of 

 Carthage, the Romans, having no enemy to dread from abroad, be- 

 gan to taste the sweets of security, and to cultivate the arts. Their 

 progress, however, was not gradual, as in the other countries we 

 have described. The conquest of Greece at once put them in pos- 

 session of every thing most rare, curious or elegant. Asia, which 

 was the next victim, offered all its stores ; and the Romans, from 

 the most simple people, speedily became acquainted with the arts, 

 the luxuries, and refinements of the whole earth. Eloquence they 

 had always cultivated as the high road to eminence and preferment. 

 The orations of Cicero are inferior only to those of Demosthenes. 

 In poetry, Virgil yields only to Homer, whose verse, like the prose 

 of Demosthenes, may be considered as inimitable. Horace, however, 

 in his Satires and Epistles, had no model among the Greeks, and 

 stands to this day unrivalled in that species of writing. In history, 

 the Romans can boast of Livy, who possesses all the natural ease of 

 Herodotus, and is more descriptive, more eloquent, and sentimen- 

 tal. Tacitus, indeed, did not flourish in the Augustan age ; but 

 his works do himself the greatest honour, while they disgrace his 

 country and human nature, whose corruption and vices he paints in 

 the most striking colours. In philosophy, if we except the works 

 of Cicero, and the system of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, de- 

 scribed in the nervous poetry of Lucretius, the Romans, during the 

 time of the republic, made not the least attempt. In tragedy they 

 never produced any thing excellent ; and Terence, though re- 

 markable for purity of style, wants that vis comica, or lively vein of 

 humour, that distinguishes the writings of the comic poets of 

 Greece, and those of our immortal Shakspeare. 



We now return to our history, and are arrived at an sera which 

 presents us with a set of monsters, under the name of emperors, 

 whose acts, a few excepted, disgrace human nature. They did 

 not, indeed, abolish the forms of the Roman republic, though 

 they extinguished its liberties ; and while they were practising the 

 most unwarrantable cruelties upon their subjects, they themselves 

 were the slaves of their soldiers They made the world tremble,, 

 while they in their turn trembled at the army. Rome, from the 

 time of Augustus, became the most despotic empire that ever sub- 

 sisted in Europe ; and the court of its emperors exhibited the most 

 odious scenes of that caprice, cruelty, and corruption, which univer- 

 sally prevail under a despotic government. When it is said that 

 the Roman republic conquered the world, it is only meant of the 

 civilised part of it, chiefly Greece,' Carthage, and Asia. A more 

 difficult task still remained for the emperors. ...to subdue the bar- 

 barous nations of Europe. ...the Germans, the Gauls, the Britons, 

 and even the remote people of Scotland ; for though these coun- 

 tries had been discovered, they were not effectually subdued by 

 the Roman generals. These nations, though rude and ignorant, 

 were brave and independent. It was rather from the superiority 

 of their discipline, than of their courage, that the Romans gained 

 any advantage over them. The Roman wars with the Germans 

 are described by Tacitus ; and from his accounts, though a Roman,, 

 it is easy to discover with what bravery they fought, and with 

 v/hat relu.ctan.ce they submitted to a foreign yoke. From the 



