DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62267#0254
CLASSICAL TOUR
241
silence. Shall our less perfect dialects be more
fortunate, and can typographic art impart to
them an immortality that fate refused to the
beauty of Greece and to the majesty of Rome ?
I know not; but I can scarce expect such a
distinction. One consolation however offers it-
self amid this general wreck of man, of his
works, and of his inventions ; it is, that new
political associations arise from the dissolution
of ki ngdoms and empires, and call forth with
increased vigor and interest the energies and
the virtues of the human heart; that new com-
binations of sound spring from the decay of
fading languages, affording fresh expressions to
the understanding, and opening other fields to
the imagination ; and that thus all the shifting
scenery and the ceaseless vicissitudes of the
external world tend only to develop the powers
of the mind, and finally to promote the gradual
perfection of the intellectual system.
RELIGION.
VII. The traveller who wishes to form a just
idea of the religion of Italy, or indeed of any
other European territory, would do well to con-
sider, that in all Christian countries the same
Gospel is professed, and of course the same
241
silence. Shall our less perfect dialects be more
fortunate, and can typographic art impart to
them an immortality that fate refused to the
beauty of Greece and to the majesty of Rome ?
I know not; but I can scarce expect such a
distinction. One consolation however offers it-
self amid this general wreck of man, of his
works, and of his inventions ; it is, that new
political associations arise from the dissolution
of ki ngdoms and empires, and call forth with
increased vigor and interest the energies and
the virtues of the human heart; that new com-
binations of sound spring from the decay of
fading languages, affording fresh expressions to
the understanding, and opening other fields to
the imagination ; and that thus all the shifting
scenery and the ceaseless vicissitudes of the
external world tend only to develop the powers
of the mind, and finally to promote the gradual
perfection of the intellectual system.
RELIGION.
VII. The traveller who wishes to form a just
idea of the religion of Italy, or indeed of any
other European territory, would do well to con-
sider, that in all Christian countries the same
Gospel is professed, and of course the same