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Lectures and Essays By: Goldwin Smith (1823-1910) |
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BY GOLDWIN SMITH
PREFATORY NOTE. These papers have been reprinted for friends who sometimes ask for the
back numbers of periodicals in which they appeared. The great public is
sick of reprints, and with good reason. The volume might almost have been called Contributions to Canadian
Literature, for of the papers not originally published in Canada several
were reproduced in Canadian journals. Political subjects have been
excluded both to keep a volume intended for friends free from anything
of a party character and because the writer looks forward to putting the
thoughts scattered over his political essays and reviews into a more
connected form. The papers on 'The Early Years of the Conqueror of Quebec,' 'A
Wirepuller of Kings,' 'A True Captain of Industry' and 'Early Years of
Abraham Lincoln' can hardly pretend to be more than accounts of books to
which they relate, but they interested some of their readers at the time
and there are probably not many copies of the books in Canada. All the
papers have been revised, so that they do not appear here exactly as
they were in the periodicals from which they are reprinted. TORONTO, Feb. 16, 1881
CONTENTS.
THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS ( Contemporary Review ) THE GREATNESS OF ENGLAND ( Contemporary Review. ) THE GREAT DUEL OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ( Canadian Monthly ) THE LAMPS OF FICTION ( A Speech on the Centenary of the Birth of Sir
Walter Scott ) AN ADDRESS TO THE OXFORD SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND ART THE ASCENT OF MAN ( Macmillan's Magazine. ) THE PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR RELIGION ( Macmillan's Magazine. ) THE LABOUR MOVEMENT ( Canadian Monthly. ) WHAT IS CULPABLE LUXURY? ( Canadian Monthly. ) A TRUE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY ( Canadian Monthly. ) A WIREPULLER OF KINGS ( Canadian Monthly. ) THE EARLY YEARS OF THE CONQUEROR OF QUEBEC ( Toronto Nation. ) FALKLAND AND THE PURITANS ( Contemporary Review. ) THE EARLY YEARS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN ( Toronto Mail ) ALFREDUS REX FUNDATOR ( Canadian Monthly ) THE LAST REPUBLICANS OF ROME ( MacMillan's Magazine ) AUSTEN LEIGH'S MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN ( New York Nation ) PATTISON'S MILTON ( New York Nation ) CLERIDGE'S LIFE OF KEBLE ( New York Nation )
THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS
Rome was great in arms, in government, in law. This combination was the
talisman of her august fortunes. But the three things, though blended in
her, are distinct from each other, and the political analyst is called
upon to give a separate account of each. By what agency was this State,
out of all the States of Italy, out of all the States of the world,
elected to a triple pre eminence, and to the imperial supremacy of
which, it was the foundation? By what agency was Rome chosen as the
foundress of an empire which we regard almost as a necessary step in
human development, and which formed the material, and to no small extent
the political matrix of modern Europe, though the spiritual life of our
civilization is derived from another source? We are not aware that this
question has ever been distinctly answered, or even distinctly
propounded. The writer once put it to a very eminent Roman antiquarian,
and the answer was a quotation from Virgil "Hoc nemus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice clivum
Quis deus incertum est, habitat Deus; Arcades ipsum
Credunt se vidisae Jovem cum saepe nigrantem
AEgida concuteret dextra nimbosque cieret." This perhaps was the best answer that Roman patriotism, ancient or
modern, could give; and it certainly was given in the best form. The
political passages of Virgil, like some in Lucan and Juvenal, had a
grandeur entirely Roman with which neither Homer nor any other Greek has
anything to do. But historical criticism, without doing injustice to the
poetical aspect of the mystery, is bound to seek a rational solution.
Perhaps in seeking the solution we may in some measure supply, or at
least suggest the mode of supplying, a deficiency which we venture to
think is generally found in the first chapters of histories... Continue reading book >>
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