If in the latter part of the history of the republic, the end of an accomplished career still affords an interest, although a painful one; even this ceases in the subsequent history of the emperors, in which we no longer find any more of that which charmed us in the earlier times: it is the history of a huge, corrupted mass, wherein brute force alone has weight; and in which the doom of a hundred millions of men, and even more, rests with one individual, and with the few who are next about him. The western part of this world still keeps up a sort of unity, though a feeble one, in the language which is common to the educated classes, yet in the provinces degenerates into a jargon; in the east, the Greek nationality is again established. It was a state of things of which no power on earth was able to check the march: from the war with Hannibal, there is nothing but struggles to bring about a crisis; a hundred years later, even this ceases. There was henceforth but a play of mechanical powers, all those that had life in them had entirely vanished. Nature is no longer able to bring about a crisis: it is a dying away by inches; an undefined, but deadly disease was at work, which could not fail to bring on the end. For the history of the world, this period is very remarkable; but as the history of a nation and of a state, it is sad and cheerless. In its practical application, it is still more important than that of the republic; for it is indispensably necessary for all branches of learning, especially divinity and jurisprudence. It was not therefore without reason that people formerly bestowed so much care on the study of the history of the emperors: the knowledge of this indeed is but too much neglected. I can, however, only give a very slight sketch of it now.