Egypt, already twice classic, and renowned through two mighty and distant series of ages, renewed her fading glories under new conquerors, no less worthy to possess and adorn the land of the Pharaohs, than were the Ptolemies. In that ancient home of art, the new conquerors achieved works, inferior indeed to the still lasting monuments of earlier greatness, but no less effectual in securing the ornament and defense of the land. With a warlike genius far surpassing the most triumphant energy of former rulers, the legionaries of Rome made the valley of the Nile, from its mouth to the eighth cataract, safe and wealthy. The desert wanderers, whose hordes had once overwhelmed the throne of the Pharaohs, and baffled the revenge of the Macedonian monarchs, were now crushed, curbed, or driven into the wilds; while the peaceful tiller of the ground, secure against their lawless attacks, brought his rich harvests to a fair and certain market, through the ports and million ships of the Mediterranean, to the gate of his noble conquerors, within the capital of the world. The grinding tyranny of the cruel despots of Pontus, Armenia and Syria, had, one after another, been swept away before the republican hosts of Sylla, Lucullus and Pompey; and the remorseless, stupid selfishness that has always characterized oriental despotism, even to this day, had been followed by the mild and generous exercise of that almost omnipotent sway, which the condition of the people, in most cases, showed to have been administered, in the main, for the good of its subjects. The case of Verres will perhaps rise to the minds of some of my readers, as opposed to this favorable view of Roman government; but the whole account of this and similar tyranny shows that such cases were looked on as most remarkable enormities, and they are recorded and noticed in such terms of abhorrence, as to justify us in quoting with peculiar force, the maxim, “Exceptio probat regulam.” Towards the farthest eastern boundary of the empire, the Parthian, fighting as he fled, held out against the advance of the western conquerors, in a harassing and harassed independence. The mountains and forests of central Europe, and of North Britain, too, were still manfully defended by their savage owners; yet, when they at last met the iron hosts of Germanicus, Trajan, and Agricola, they, in their turn, fell under the last triumphs of the Roman eagle. But the peace and prosperity of the empire, and even of provinces near the scene, were not moved by these disturbances. And thus, in a longitudinal line of four thousand miles, and within a circuit of ten thousand, the energies of Roman genius had hushed all wars, and stilled the nations into a long, unbroken peace, which secured the universal good. So nearly true was the lyric description, given by Milton, of the universal peace which attended the coming of the Messiah: