OP SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED LIFE. 



475 



There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, 

 The free-born wanderer of thy mountain air : 

 Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds ; 

 Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare ; 

 Art, Glory, Freedom, fails, but Nature still is fair.* 



A thousand other examples, of like efi'ect, from like causes, might easily 

 be adduced. Insomuch, that it has become a general maxim among politi- 

 cal writers, that nations, like individuals, Iiave a natural youth, perfection, 

 and dissolution. It is a maxim, however, that must be received with somq 

 degree of caution. The experiment, notwithstanding that the world has now 

 continued for nearly six thousand years, has never been tried in its hardier 

 and colder regions ; and we have already seen, that in the warmer cli- 

 mates, there is a cause operating towards the production of national 

 decay, peculiar to itself, and distinct, therefore, from the law of general 

 necessity. Yet, even in the warmer regions of the earth, the fact does 

 not hold universally ; for the Chinese have historic documents of the con- 

 tinuance of their empire for nearly four thousand years : one of the chief 

 of which is, the famous record of an eclipse of the sun, in the reign of 

 Ching-Kang, 2155 years before tlie commencement of the Christian 

 era : while Persia, though conquered by the Romans, and shorn of more 

 than half its extent in elder times, has still, under some form or another, 

 descended to the present day, through a period of nearly three thousand 

 years. And, wild and wandering as is the life of the Arab tribes, they 

 may at least make a boast of having uniformly retained their customs, 

 their liberty, and their .language, for a longer period than any other peo- 

 ple, and amidst all the changes that have befallen the most splendid empires 

 aroimd them ; and are at this day, in habits, government, and national 

 tongue, nearly the same as they were in the time of the patriarch Job ; 

 and probably as they were long before the earliest epoch to which the 

 Chinese can make any pretensions. 



There can be no doubt, however, that the very perfection of a people^ 

 in the arts of civilization and refinement, has a natural tendency to pro- 

 duce the seeds of future decay and disaoliition ; and although the Chinese 

 and Arabians have not hitlierto given proofs of any such change, it is 

 ^nly, perhaps, because they have for ages continued stationary, and have 

 never reached the absolute perfection we are speaking of. I shall close 

 the present lecture, therefore, with pointing out a few of those passions 

 and other affections which immediately spring from what may be called 

 the manhoo s, or summit of civilization, and diiefly distinctive of it, and 

 pave the way for its downfal. 



In order, hov/ever, to give strength and bearing to the picture, let us 

 first glance at the passions and emotions of mankind in a simpler state ; in 

 that middle condition of moral cultivation usually to be met with in the 

 villages and smaller towns of a highly-civihzed people, where the moral 

 affections have sweetened the heart, but refinement has not yet sweetened 

 the manners. Let us transport ourselves for a few minutes to W ales, the 

 Highlands of Scotland,! or the banks of the Garonne. In any of these 

 regions we shall be received upon a proper introduction, and often without 

 any introduction whatever, with aii honest though a homely welcome ; the 

 chief virtues of the heart v/e shall find to be chastity, sincerity, frugality, 



* Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, cant. ii. 



t See, for a correct description of the amusements, superstitions, and manners of (fee Saot- 

 tish peasantry, Bva'us's J7ai/oteffw, and his CoW«r^9 ^i'«ft^n/<yj/^^^ 



