DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18825#0025
LECT. I.] HISTORY OF ART. 15
continues not long in glory : after great labour, it
reaches its zenith, and perhaps maintains a certain
splendour during the lives of a few eminent men:
when these are gone, it dwindles to mediocrity, and
from mediocrity it sinks into neglect and oblivion.
If the morals of Greece were luxurious, and ef-
feminate, by what epithets shall we characterize the
manners of the Romans ? ct Earthly ! sensual J de-
9
vilish !" Rome became the sink into which ran the
vices of every country its arms had subdued. Aban-
doned to impiety, and slaves to debauchery, its ru-
lers and its citizens exulted in what should have asto-
nished them with shame and horror. Riches but
too often are considered solelv as the means of o-ra-
tifying the irregular passions of our nature ; and,
when flowing in abundance from the tributes of dis-
tant provinces, they seem so easily acquired, no
wonder they are rapidly spent: hence we find the
Romans addicted to vices, and to expences, which
are truly surprising; and hence originated that weak-
ness both of mind and body, of government, and
of society, which at length iflued in the overthrow
of the Roman state, and the utter subversion of its
power.
We do not therefore wonder, when reading the
history of those times, that Providence commis-
sioned the barbarous nations to punish the licen-
tious, the profligate Romans; our wonder rather is,
that long before that period they were not involved
in desolating ruin. When the numerous hordes of
the surly north had over-run the distant provinces,
and ravaged Italy, the Artist hung his head in silent
sorrow,
continues not long in glory : after great labour, it
reaches its zenith, and perhaps maintains a certain
splendour during the lives of a few eminent men:
when these are gone, it dwindles to mediocrity, and
from mediocrity it sinks into neglect and oblivion.
If the morals of Greece were luxurious, and ef-
feminate, by what epithets shall we characterize the
manners of the Romans ? ct Earthly ! sensual J de-
9
vilish !" Rome became the sink into which ran the
vices of every country its arms had subdued. Aban-
doned to impiety, and slaves to debauchery, its ru-
lers and its citizens exulted in what should have asto-
nished them with shame and horror. Riches but
too often are considered solelv as the means of o-ra-
tifying the irregular passions of our nature ; and,
when flowing in abundance from the tributes of dis-
tant provinces, they seem so easily acquired, no
wonder they are rapidly spent: hence we find the
Romans addicted to vices, and to expences, which
are truly surprising; and hence originated that weak-
ness both of mind and body, of government, and
of society, which at length iflued in the overthrow
of the Roman state, and the utter subversion of its
power.
We do not therefore wonder, when reading the
history of those times, that Providence commis-
sioned the barbarous nations to punish the licen-
tious, the profligate Romans; our wonder rather is,
that long before that period they were not involved
in desolating ruin. When the numerous hordes of
the surly north had over-run the distant provinces,
and ravaged Italy, the Artist hung his head in silent
sorrow,