Page:An Account of Corsica (1769).djvu/47

Rh Should any one transmit to posterity the annals of an enslaved nation, we should sleep over whole ages of the humbling detail. Every thing would be so poor, so tame, and so abject, that one might as well peruse the records of a prisonhouse.

But we have a manly satisfaction in reading the history of the ancient Romans; even abstracting from their connections and their broils with other states. Their internal progress alone affords ample matter of speculation to a judicious and spirited observer of human nature. We love to trace the various springs of their conduct, and of their advancement in civilization. We contemplate with pleasure the ferments between the patricians and plebeians, the strong exertions of rude genius, the vigorous exercises and hardy virtues of men uncontrouled by timid subjection.

They who entertain an extravagant veneration for antiquity, would make us believe, that the divine fire of liberty has been long ago exhausted, and that any appearances of it which are to be found in modern times, are but feeble and dim. They would make us believe that the world is grown old, that the strength of human nature is decayed, and that we are no more to expect those