the ancient religion of the empire. Such being the case, Christianity having been corrupted, and paganism still existing to a great extent, in the city and the empire, the vice and profligacy of the Roman people, under the latest of the emperors, can furnish no materials for any just reflection upon the social tendencies of the Christian system, considered in itself. In an age of social corruption and licentiousness, it would be vain to expect the cultivation of a pure taste in matters of art, or any noble efforts of the human intellect in the departments of literature. The imagination and judgment of mankind feel the moral contagion, and the intellectual energies in general become enfeebled and depressed. Hence the artistic civilisation of Rome, at the period before us, displayed a most vitiated taste. The studious imitation of classic beauty, as expressed in Grecian works of art, characterized the early cultivation of artistical skill among the Romans, and led them to produce buildings and statues which might bear comparison with their admired models; but now, a taste for the really elegant, had been superseded by a passion for oriental magnificence and luxury. Colossal magnitude, and profuse ornaments, excited admiration rather than symmetry of proportion, and chasteness of decoration. As to literature, it was either neglected altogether, or cultivated according to the prevailing taste. "The causes of this decay," observes Ammianus Marcellinus, "are not difficult to be traced: they are the dissipation of our young men, the inattention of parents, the ignorance of those who pretend to give instruction, and the total neglect of ancient discipline. The mischief began at Rome, it has overrun Italy, and is now with rapid strides spreading through the provinces." The same author also distinctly notices, in his sketch of the state of Rome, the prevalent ignorance and corrupt tastes of the higher classes, observing, that musical performers were preferred to philosophers; and that jugglers had taken the place of orators; while libraries were closed and deserted, like sepulchres of the dead.[10]