Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. RomanMiller, Frank Justus
Philosophy
Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman
Miller, Frank Justus
Latin poetry -- History and criticism
They had besides expelled all the professors of philosophy, and
driven every laudable science into exile, that naught which was
worthy and honest might anywhere be seen. Mighty, surely, was the
testimony which we gave of our patience; and as our forefathers
had beheld the ultimate consummation of liberty, so did we of
bondage, since through dread of informers and inquisitions of
state, we were bereft of the common intercourse of speech and
attention. Nay, with our utterance we had likewise lost our
memory, had it been equally in our power to forget as to be
silent.... Few we are who have escaped; and, if I may so speak, we
have survived not only others, but even ourselves, when from the
middle of our lives so many years were rent; whence from being
young we are arrived at old age, from being old we are nigh come
to the utmost verge of mortality, all in a long course of awful
silence.--_Galton._
Somewhat earlier than this, though within the same generation, Paul the
apostle to the Gentiles, _the_ preacher of that dark age, had written a
letter to the infant Christian church at Rome in which he had drawn a
terrible picture of what human society can become when it has thrown off
all checks and abandoned itself to profligacy. His picture, we may be
sure, was drawn from the life.
And even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave
them up unto a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit,
malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent,
haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to
parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural
affection, unmerciful: who, knowing the ordinance of God, that
they which practice such things are worthy of death, not only do
the same, but also consent with them that practice them.
Upon such a world as this did Juvenal, in the prime of manhood, his
powers of reason, observation, and expression fully ripened, look out
from his home in the Roman Subura;[C] with the product of such times did
he mingle in the crowded reception-rooms of rich and noble patrons. He
looked upon society and noted it, and long restrained his speech. But at
last, as Tyrrell has well expressed it, "the flood of indignation, pent
up in furious silence for forty years, once loose, carried away on its
current or tossed aside every obstacle that impeded its onward rush."
[C] A quarter in Rome given up to markets and tenement-houses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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