es and solitudes, and making
death the relief from sorrow.

The fourteenth satire of Juvenal is directed mainly to the universal
passion for gain and the demoralizing vices it brings in its train,
which made Rome a Vanity Fair and even a Pandemonium.

The old Greek philosophers gloried in their poverty; but poverty was the
greatest reproach to a Roman. "In exact proportion to the sum of money a
man keeps in his chest," says Juvenal, "is the credit given to his oath.
And the first question ever asked of a man is in reference to his
income, rather than his character. How many slaves does he keep; how
many acres does he own; what dishes are his table spread with?--these
are the universal inquiries. Poverty, bitter though it be, has no
sharper sting than this,--that it makes men ridiculous. Who was ever
allowed at Borne to become a son-in-law, if his estate was inferior?
What poor man's name appears in any will?"

And with this reproach of poverty there were no means to escape from it.
Nor was there alleviation. A man was regarded as a fool who gave
anything except to the rich. Charity and benevolence were unknown
virtues. The sick and the miserable were left to die unlamented and
unknown. Prosperity and success, no matter by what means they were
purchased, secured reverence and influence.

Such was imperial Rome, in all the internal relations of life, and amid
all the trophies and praises which resulted from universal conquest,--a
sad, gloomy, dismal picture, which fills us with disgust as well as
melancholy. If any one deems it an exaggeration, he has only to read
Saint Paul's first chapter in his epistle to the Romans. I cannot
understand the enthusiasm of Gibbon for such a people, or for such an
empire,--a grinding and resistless imperial despotism, a sensual and
proud aristocracy, a debased and ignorant populace, enormously
disproportionate conditions of fortune, slavery flourishing to a state
unprecedented in the world's history, women the victims and the toys of
men, lax sentiments of public and private morality, a whole people given
over to demoralizing sports and spectacles, pleasure the master passion
of the people, money the mainspring of society, a universal indulgence
in all the vices which lead to violence and prepare the way for the
total eclipse of the glory of man. Of what value was the cultivation of
Nature, or a splendid material civilization, or great armies, or an
unrivalled jurisprudence, or the tr