for ages;[17] scarcely needed
to fight, unless she pleased, and, when she did so, fought in alliance
with famine--with thirst--and with the confusion of pathless deserts.
Other empires, again, are protected by their infinity; America was found
to have no local existence by ourselves: she was nowhere because she was
everywhere. Russia had the same illimitable ubiquity for Napoleon. And
Spain again is so singularly placed with regard to France, a chamber
within a chamber, that she cannot be approached by any power not
maritime except on French permission. Manifold are the defensive
resources of nations beyond those of military systems. But for the Roman
empire, a ring fence around the Mediterranean lake, and hemmed in upon
every quarter of that vast circuit by an _indago_ of martial hunters,
nature and providence had made it the one sole available policy to stand
for ever under arms, eternally 'in procinctu,' and watching from the
specular altitude of her centre upon which radius she should slip her
wolves to the endless circumference.

Mr. Finlay, in our judgment, not only allows a most disproportionate
weight to vicious taxation, which is but one wheel amongst a vast system
of wheels in the machinery of administration, and which, like many
similar agencies, tends oftentimes to react by many corrections upon its
own derangements; but subsequently he views as through a magnifying
glass even these original exaggerations when measured upon the scale of
moral obligations. Not only does false taxation ruin nations and defeat
the possibility of self-defence--which is much--but it cancels the
duties of allegiance. He tells us (p. 408) that 'amidst the ravages of
the Goths, Huns, and Avars, the imperial tax-gatherers had never failed
to enforce payment of the tribute as long as anything remained
undestroyed; though according to the rules of justice, the Roman
government had really forfeited its right to levy the taxes, as soon as
it failed to perform its duty in defending the population.' We do not
believe that the government succeeded in levying tribute vigorously
under the circumstances supposed; the science and machinery of
administration were far from having realized that degree of exquisite
skill. But, if the government _had_ succeeded, we cannot admit that this
relation of the parties dissolved their connection. To have failed at
any time in defending a province or an outwork against an overwhelming
enemy, _that_ for a pri