Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BELISARIUS. T T is no wonder that in the absence of a better in- spiration, mankind should deify Fortune and build temples to her worship. The philosopher and the wit, while they might smile at the vain credulities of the multitude, must join in the public ascriptions of praise and the public offices of sacrifice. Horace, the gay and worldly-minded, could have his jest at the splendid entertainments of the prime minister; but when he came to speak to the people of the Roman Legions, and their generals in distant wars, he discoursed in language almost too solemn not to be sincere:— Te Dacus asper, te profugi Scythae, Urbesque gentesque, et Latium ferox, Regum que matres barbaromm et Purpurei metuunt tyranni.' The unaccountable vicissitudes in human affairs might well suggest to all who believed that the destinies of men were shaped or overruled by unseen intelligences, that among these superior beings there was one who loved to confound the calculations of the wise and to be entertained by the absurd displays of the simple. Yet the temple at Antium, the oldest and most magnificent that had been reared by the Romans to Fortune, had received the worship of many generations before the most devout worshippers came to look among others than those of gentle blood for such as the divinity might select to become kings, or consuls, or senators. The world has never known a state so great as Rome, while her rulers, regal and republican, were taken from those of ancient hereditary rank. The real glory of that celebrated Roman People was achieved by the genius and under the rule of Patricians. Conservatism and decency fled before the vulgarity of Marius, and a despotism became necessary to avert the ruin that would have ensued from the social wars of such a democracy. It wa...