It was not broken in pieces by the blows of foreign enemies, but died of its own inherent corruption. The most prominent visible effect of this corruption, which struck the eyes even of heathens, was that man's vices made void the primeval blessing, 'Be fruitful and multiply.' Plutarch, a Greek of the age of Trajan, lamented that all Greece in his day could not supply as many men as one of its smaller cities sent out to war four hundred years earlier. The decline of population in Rome itself was no less rapid and steady. And men died out, not because they were wasted by war, by pestilence, by famine, or by grinding tyranny, but because unrestrained self-indulgence dried up the very sources of increase. If there had been no barbarians to rush in and fill up the void, the Empire would have fallen in pieces for want of life enough to hold it together. Its history proved that the real causes of the ruin of States are not political, but moral and social, and that in nations, as in individuals, the words of the poet are most strictly fulfilled:-- 'Thou art the source and centre of all minds, Their only point of rest, Eternal Word. From Thee departing they are lost, and rove At random, without honour, hope, or peace; From Thee is all that soothes the life of man-- His high endeavour, and his glad success, His strength to suffer, and his will to serve. But oh! Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown; Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor, And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.' FOOTNOTES: [1] 'Lectures on Modern History.' [2] A native of Barcelona, who was made head of the French police in 1759, and retired in 1780. [3] Vol. iii., p. 196. We borrow the translation of a living author. [4] Details are necessarily omitted, for want of space, in this extract, as well as in the last, the loss of which weakens its force. [5] See Salvian 'De Gubernatione Dei.' [6] See a curious collection of passages in the notes to M. de Champagny's chapter on Slavery. ('Les Césars,' vol. iii.) [7] See Champagny's 'Cæsars,' vol. iii. p. 122. [8] Thus Livy: 'Ad illa mihi pro se quisque intendat animum, quæ vita qui mores fuerint; per quos viros, quibusque artibus, domi militiæque, et partum et auctum imperium sit. Labente deinde paullatim disciplinâ, velut desidentes primo mores sequatur animo, deinde ut magis magisque lapsi sint; tum ire coeperint præcipites; donec ad hæc tempora, quibus nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus perventum est;' and yet he is so far from considering this an evil peculiar to Rome, that he adds, 'Nulla unquam respublica nec major nec sanctior nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit; nec in quam civitatem tam seræ avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint, nec ubi tantus et tam diu paupertati ac parsimoniæ honos fuerit.'--(_Præfatio._) [9] 'Roman History,' vol. ii. chap. xxvi. [10] See Champagny, Appendix, 'Les Césars,' vol. i.