isy, of man has ascended.

We, reader, are misanthropical--intensely so. No luxury known amongst
men--neither the paws of bears nor the tails of sheep--to us is so sweet
and dear as that of hating (yet much oftener of despising) our excellent
fellow-creatures. Oftentimes we exclaim in our dreams, where excuse us
for expressing our multitude by unity, 'Homo sum; humani nihil mihi
tolerandum puto.' We kick backwards at the human race, we spit upon
them; we void our rheum upon their ugly gaberdines. Consequently we do
not love either Greek or Roman; we regard them in some measure as
humbugs. But although it is no cue of ours to admire them (viz., in any
English sense of that word known to Entick's Dictionary), yet in a
Grecian or Roman sense we may say that [Greek: thaumazomen],
_admiramur_, both of these nations: we marvel, we wonder at them
exceedingly. Greece we shall omit, because to talk of the arts, and
Phidias, and Pericles, and '_all that_,' is the surest way yet
discovered by man for tempting a vindictive succession of kicks. Exposed
to the world, no author of such twaddle could long evade assassination.
But Rome is entitled to some separate notice, even after all that has
been written about her. And the more so in this case, because Mr. Finlay
has scarcely done her justice. He says: 'The Romans were a tribe of
warriors. All their institutions, even those relating to property, were
formed with reference to war.' And he then goes on to this invidious
theory of their history--that, as warriors, they overthrew the local
institutions of all Western nations, these nations being found by the
Romans in a state of civilization much inferior to their own. But
eastwards, when conquering Greece, her institutions they did _not_
overthrow. And what follows from that memorable difference? Why, that in
after days, when hives of barbarians issued from central Europe, all the
Western provinces (as not cemented by any native and home-bred
institutions, but fighting under the harness of an exotic organization)
sank before them; whereas Greece, falling back on the natural resources
of a system self-evolved and _local_, or epichorial in its origin, not
only defied these German barbarians for the moment, but actually after
having her throat cut in a manner rose up magnificently (as did the
Lancashire woman after being murdered by the M'Keans of Dumfries)[16],
staggered along for a considerable distance, and then (as the
Lancashire woma