Part 15 (1/2)

XXIV THE POLICY OF THE EMPIRE IN THE FIRST CENTURY

EDWARD GIBBON--1737-1794

_From_ THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of uarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor The gentle but powerful influence of laws and radually cemented the union of the provinces Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury The ie of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Ron authority, and devolved on the e a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines

The principal conquests of the Romans were achieved under the republic; and the e those dominions which had been acquired by the policy of the senate, the active emulation of the consuls, and the martial enthusiasm of the people The seven first centuries were filled with a rapid succession of triuustus to relinquish the a the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation into the public councils Inclined to peace by his temper and situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome, in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of re became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the possession ustus added weight to these salutary reflections, and effectually convinced hior of his counsels, it would be easy to secure every concession which the safety or the dignity of Roht require fro his person and his legions to the arrows of the Parthians, he obtained, by an honorable treaty, the restitution of the standards and prisoners which had been taken in the defeat of Crassus

His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the reduction of aethiopia and Arabia Felix They marched near a thousand miles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the climate soon repelled the invaders, and protected the unwarlike natives of those sequestered regions The northern countries of Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labor of conquest The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated froh, on the first attack, they seeht of the Roained their independence, and reustus of the vicissitude of fortune On the death of that emperor, his testament was publicly read in the senate He bequeathed, as a valuable legacy to his successors, the advice of confining the empire within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: on the west the Atlantic Ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the east; and towards the south, the sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa

Happily for the repose of ustus was adopted by the fears and vices of his ied in the pursuit of pleasure, or in the exercise of tyranny, the first Caesars seldom showed themselves to the armies or to the provinces; nor were they disposed to suffer that those triulected should be usurped by the conduct and valor of their lieutenants The military fame of a subject was considered as an insolent invasion of the iative; and it becauard the frontiers intrusted to his care, without aspiring to conquests which ht have proved no less fatal to himself than to the vanquished barbarians

The only accession which the Ro the first century of the Christian era was the province of Britain In this single instance the successors of Caesar and Augustus were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seeh doubtful, intelligence of a pearl-fishery attracted their avarice; and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely foreneral system of continental measures After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terreater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke The various tribes of Britons possessed valor without conduct, and the love of freedoe fierceness; they laid theainst each other, ild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of their country, or resist the steady progress of the ilory, when the throne was disgraced by the weakest or the most vicious of mankind At the very time when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he inspired, his legions, under the coricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians at the foot of the Gra to explore an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms round every part of the island The conquest of Britain was considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola to complete and insure his success by the easy reduction of Ireland, for which, in his opinion, one legion and a few auxiliaries were sufficient

The western isle ht be improved into a valuable possession, and the Britons would wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of freedom was on every side removed froricola soon occasioned his reovernh extensive, scheeneral had provided for security as well as for dominion He had observed that the island is alulfs, or, as they are now called, the Friths of Scotland Across the narrow interval of about forty miles he had drawn a line of n of Antoninus Pius, by a turf rampart, erected on foundations of stone This wall of Antoninus, at a soas fixed as the limit of the Roman province The native Caledonians preserved, in the northern extremity of the island, their wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valor Their incursions were frequently repelled and chastised, but their country was never subdued The lobe turned with conteloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians

Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the ustus to the accession of Trajan

XXV ON THE ATTACKS UPON HIS PENSION[F]

EDMUND BURKE--1729-1797

In one thing I can excuse the Duke of Bedford for his attack upon me and my mortuary pension: He cannot readily comprehend the transaction he condeain, the production of no intrigue, the result of no coestion of it never came from me, mediately or im known that the instant ements would permit it, and before the heaviest of all calamities had forever condemned me to obscurity and sorrow, I had resolved on a total retreat I had executed that design I was entirely out of the way of serving or of hurting any statesenerously and so nobly carried into effect the spontaneous bounty of the crown Both descriptions have acted as becaer serve them, the er hurt theratitude, I trust, is equal to the manner in which the benefit was conferred It came to me, indeed, at a time of life, and in a state of mind and body, in which no circumstance of fortune could afford me any real pleasure But this was no fault in the royal donor, or in histhe e the sorrows of a desolate old man

I was not like his Grace of Bedford, swaddled, and rocked, and dandled into a legislator: ”_Nitor in adversum_” is the motto for a man like me

I possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts, that recoreat I was not made for athe hearts by is of the people At every step of ress in life--for in every step was I traversed and opposed--and at every turnpike I ain to proveuseful to my country, by a proof that I was not wholly unacquainted with its laws, and the whole system of its interests both abroad and at home

Otherwise, no rank, no toleration even, for me I had no arts but manly arts On them I have stood, and, please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to the last gasp will I stand

The Duke of Bedford conceives that he is obliged to call the attention of the House of Peers to his Majesty's grant to me, which he considers as excessive and out of all bounds

I know not how it has happened, but it really see his well-considered censure upon me, he fell into a sort of sleep Homer nods, and the Duke of Bedford olden dreaether, his Grace preserved his idea of reproach to _rants to _his own family_ This is ”the stuff of which his dreaether, his Grace is perfectly in the right The grants to the house of Russell were so enorer credibility The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan a all the creatures of the crown He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty

Huge as he is, and whilst ”he lies floating many a rood,” he is still a creature His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, and coversof him and about him is from the throne Is it for _him_ to question the dispensation of the royal favor?

I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public rants he holds, and these services of mine, on the favorable construction of which I have obtained what his Grace so much disapproves In private life I have not at all the honor of acquaintance with the noble Duke; but I ought to presu to do so, that he abundantly deserves the esteem and love of all who live with him But as to public service, why, truly, it would not be more ridiculous for me to compare myself, in rank, in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth, strength, or figure, with the Duke of Bedford, than to make a parallel between his services and ross adulation, but uncivil irony, to say that he has any public merit of his own to keep alive the idea of the services by which his vast landed pensions were obtained My inal and personal: his are derivative It is his ancestor, the original pensioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible fund of merit, which makes his Grace so very delicate and exceptious about the rantees of the crown Had he permitted me to remain in quiet, I should have said: ”'Tis his estate; that's enough It is his by lahat have I to do with it or its history?” He would naturally have said on his side: ”'Tis this ood now aspensions--that's all”

Why will his Grace, by attacking me, force me reluctantly to compare my little ies of profuse donation by which he tramples on the mediocrity of hurantees have war n is not to be taken, let us turn our eyes to history, in which great in of their house