"Her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased." But now, after power, wealth, empire, have come corruption, slavery, ruin; and Venice,-- "Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose." But the course which Venice has run is that of all States which have yet appeared in the world. History is but a roll of defunct empires, whose career has been alike; and Venice and Rome are but the latest names on the list. Egypt, Chaldea, Tyre, Greece, Rome,--to all, as if by an inevitable law, there came, after the day of civilization and empire, the night of barbarism and slavery. This has been repeated again and again, till the world has come to accept of it as its established course. We see States emerging from infancy and weakness slowly and laboriously, becoming rich, enlightened, powerful; and the moment they seemed to have perfected their civilization, and consolidated their power, they begin to fall. The past history of our race is but a history of efforts, successful up to a certain point, but only to a certain point; for whenever that point has been reached, all the fruits of past labour,--all the accumulations of legislators, philosophers, and warriors,--have been swept away, and the human family have found that they had to begin the same laborious process over again,--to toil upwards from the same gulph, to be overtaken by the same disaster. History has been simply a series of ever-recurring cycles, ending in barbarism. This is a discouraging aspect of human affairs, and throws a doubtful shadow upon the future; but it is the aspect in which history exhibits them. The Etrurian tombs speak of an era of civilization and power succeeded by barbarism. The mounds of Nineveh speak of a similar revolution. The day of Greek glory sank at last in unbroken night. At the fall of the Roman empire, barbarism overspread Europe; and now the cycle appears to have come round to the nations of modern Europe. Since the middle of last century there has been a marked and fearfully rapid decline in all the States of continental Europe. The entire region south of the Alps, including the once powerful kingdoms of Italy and Spain, is sunk in slavery and barbarism. France alone retains its civilization; but how long is it likely to retain it, with its strength undermined by revolution, and its liberties completely prostrated? Niebuhr has given expression in his works to his decided opinion, _that the dark ages are returning_. And are we not at this moment witnessing an attempted repetition of the Gothic invasion of the fourth century, in the barbarian north, which is pressing with ever-growing weight upon the feeble barrier of the East?