DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62267#0344
33i
CLASSICAL TOUR
Dis.
liberty shewed itself in the various common-
wealths that rose up in every part of Ansonia,
and at length it settled and blazed for ages in
the Roman Republic. The former have given
the same proofs of the same spirit. They have
covered the face of the same country with free
States, and at length beheld, with a mixture of
joy and jealousy, the grand republic of Venice,
the daughter and almost the rival of Rome, stand
forward the bulwark and the glory of Italy. The
ancient Romans, by their arms, founded the
most extensive, the most flourishing, and the
most splendid empire, that ages ever witnessed
in their flight. The modern Italians, by their
wisdom, have acquired a more permanent, and
perhaps a more glorious dominion over the opi-
nions of mankind, and still govern the world by
their religion and their taste, by their arts and
their sciences. To the ancient Italians, we owe
the plainest, the noblest, the most majestic lan-
guage ever spoken : to the modern, we are in-
debted for the softest and sweetest dialect, which
human lips ever uttered. The ancient Romans
raised the Pantheon ; the modern erected the
Vatican. The former boast of the age of
Augustus, the latter glory in that of Leo, The
former have given us Virgil, the latter Tasso. In
which of these respects are the modern Italians
unw orthy of their ancestors ?
CLASSICAL TOUR
Dis.
liberty shewed itself in the various common-
wealths that rose up in every part of Ansonia,
and at length it settled and blazed for ages in
the Roman Republic. The former have given
the same proofs of the same spirit. They have
covered the face of the same country with free
States, and at length beheld, with a mixture of
joy and jealousy, the grand republic of Venice,
the daughter and almost the rival of Rome, stand
forward the bulwark and the glory of Italy. The
ancient Romans, by their arms, founded the
most extensive, the most flourishing, and the
most splendid empire, that ages ever witnessed
in their flight. The modern Italians, by their
wisdom, have acquired a more permanent, and
perhaps a more glorious dominion over the opi-
nions of mankind, and still govern the world by
their religion and their taste, by their arts and
their sciences. To the ancient Italians, we owe
the plainest, the noblest, the most majestic lan-
guage ever spoken : to the modern, we are in-
debted for the softest and sweetest dialect, which
human lips ever uttered. The ancient Romans
raised the Pantheon ; the modern erected the
Vatican. The former boast of the age of
Augustus, the latter glory in that of Leo, The
former have given us Virgil, the latter Tasso. In
which of these respects are the modern Italians
unw orthy of their ancestors ?