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heart every emotion of patriotism. But, far from being a principle of union among the ancient Romans, it tended to separate them. The great difference between the Greek and Latin tongues soon created opposition in the empires of the East and West. These two languages, which had already shone so brilliantly in literature, were adopted by the government, by the wealthy classes, by all who had any pretension to polite education, and by the majority of the inhabitants of the cities. Latin was spoken in the prefecture of the Gauls, in Africa, Italy, a part of the Illyrian prefecture, and along the Danube. Greek was spoken in the southern part of the Illyrian prefecture, and throughout all the prefecture of the East.

But the great mass of the inhabitants of the country places (which were not exclusively cultivated by slaves brought from distant parts) preserved their provincial languages. Thus the Celtic was spoken in the Armorica and the island of Britain, the Illyrian in the greater portion of Illyria, and the Syrian, the Coptic, and the Armenian, in the provinces whence those languages derive their names. Wherever the people were most subjugated and oppressed, they made the greatest efforts to acquire the language of their masters; but the latter were, on the contrary, obliged to make advances where the people were most free. There was a continual locomotion among the inhabitants of the whole empire, occasioned by the immense traffic in slaves, the military service, and the pursuit of civil employments; and each province presented among the lower classes of society, the most whimsical combination of various dialects.

But it is in the state of the people, in particular, that we must look for the causes of the extreme weakness of the Roman Empire. If we wish to know the various classes into which they were divided, we shall find, 1st. senatorial families, the proprietors of immense territories and immense wealth, who had successively encroached on the inheritances of the more inferior landed proprietors; 2d. the inhabitants of the large cities, a mixture of artisans and free men, who subsisted by the luxury of the rich, who participated in their corruption; 3d. the inhabitants of the small cities, poor, despised, and oppressed; 4th. coloni and slaves in the country places; 5th. robbers in the woods, who, to avoid oppression, had devoted themselves to plunder.

The upper classes of a nation may communicate wisdom and virtue to a government, if they themselves be wise and virtuous; but they can never give it power. Power is always derived from a lower source; it always proceeds from the great mass of the people. Now in the Roman Empire this mass, so various with respect to language, manners, and religion, so wild amidst civilization, so oppressed and so degraded, were scarcely perceived by those who were maintained by its labour. The mass of the people

is hardly ever mentioned by historians; it languished in misery, perished, and in some provinces almost disappeared, without notice; and it is only by a series of comparisons that we arrive at the knowledge of its fate.

In the present state of Europe, the class of the peasantry, of those who live by the manual labour of agriculture, forms about four-fifths of the population of every country, England only excepted. We must presume that in the Roman empire the peasantry were proportionally still more numerous, since trade and commerce were not carried to the extent to which they have arrived in modern times. But, however numerous the peasantry might be, they were never accounted a part of the nation; they were looked upon as scarcely superior to the domestic animals whose labour they shared. The upper classes would have dreaded to hear them pronounce the name of country, or develope any moral quality, and particularly courage, as that might have been turned against their oppressors. The peasantry were all rigorously forbidden to bear arms, and they consequently could not contribute to the defence of the country, or oppose resistance to the advance of an enemy.

The rural population of the Roman empire was divided into two classes, the free coloni and the slaves, who differed much more in name than in real privileges. The former cultivated the ground by set tasks, which were for the most part payable in kind; but as a prodigious distance separated them from their masters, as their complaints were never heard, as the laws afforded them no security, their condition became more and more wretched, and in the excess of their misery they frequently fled, abandoned their homes and their families, and sought refuge on the lands of some other proprietor. The Imperial laws had established summary processes by which they could be claimed and seized wherever they might be found. Such was the fate of the free cultivators.

The slaves likewise formed two classes. Those who were born on the territories of the master, and who consequently had no other home, no other country, inspired a greater degree of confidence than those who had been purchased. The former lived in huts under the eyes of their commanders; but as misery and illtreatment continually diminished their numbers, an active traffic was carried on throughout all the Roman Empire for the purpose of raising fresh supplies. The victories of the Roman armies, and frequently those of savage tribes contending one with another, the punishments inflicted by the emperors, or their lieutenants, on the towns or provinces which had revolted, and the inhabitants of which were sold, abundantly supplied the slave-merchants; but at the expense of all that was most valuable in society. The wretched slaves constantly laboured with fetters on their feet; they were doomed to endure excessive fatigue in order to curb their spirit, and they were confined every night in subterraneous dungeons.

The dreadful misery to which so great a portion of the popula tion was reduced, and their hatred of their oppressors, multiplied among the slaves insurrections, plots, assassinations, and poisonings. In vain a cruel law condemned to death all the slaves of a master who should be assassinated; revenge and despair served only to multiply crimes. Those who had avenged their wrongs, and those who, without having resorted to violence, were nevertheless the objects of suspicion, fled to the woods, and subsisted on plunder. Their numbers were so considerable, that their attacks frequently assumed the character of a civil war, rather than the disorders of a band of robbers. By their depredations they aggravated the misery of those who had recently been their companions in misfortune; and at length whole districts and provinces were successively abandoned by the cultivators.

The rich senator was sometimes able to repair his losses, or to obtain the aid of the laws to defend his property: but the small proprietor, who himself cultivated his land, could not so easily surmount the injuries he might sustain, and his life and property were daily endangered. He therefore eagerly disposed of his patrimony at any price, whenever one of his opulent neighbours might be disposed to purchase it. Indeed it not unfrequently happened that he abandoned it without compensation, or was deprived of it by the weight of public burdens. Thus all the independent classes, who more than any other were capable of feeling the inspiration of patriotism and defending their country, soon totally disappeared. The number of landed proprietors diminished to such a degree, that a man of senatorial family might frequently travel two leagues without meeting his equal; and consequently some few, who happened to be the proprietors of whole provinces, already began to be looked upon as petty sovereigns.

Amidst this universal desolation, the existence of great cities is a phenomenon which cannot easily be conceived: but this phenomenon exists in modern times in Barbary, Turkey, and throughout all the East, in short, wherever despotism overwhelms the individual detached from society, and where it is impossible to evade its outrages except by mingling with the crowd. These great cities were themselves inhabited, for the most part, by artizans, subject to rigid laws, free-men and slaves; but they also contained a greater number than can be found in any modern city, of those individuals who were content with the mere necessaries of existence, and who passed their lives in idleness. All this population was likewise prohibited from bearing arms, and was looked upon as foreign to the country; but, being collected together, it drew forth some respect from power. In all the cities of the first order, provisions were gratuitously distributed, in the same manner as games and spectacles were gratuitously performed in the circuses and theatres. The levity, the love of pleasure, and the regardless

ness of the future, which invariably characterize the populace of great cities, were manifested by the provincial Romans, amidst the latest calamities of the empire; and Treves, the capital of the Prefecture of the Gauls, was not the only city that was surprised and pillaged by barbarians, while the citizens, crowned with garlands, were engaged in applauding the games of the circus.

Such was the interior of the empire at the commencement of the fourth century; such was the population which should have resisted the universal invasion of savages. The latter frequently left the citizens only the choice of dying armed or dying in submission; and the descendants of the proud Romans, the heirs of all the glory which had been once acquired by the most exalted virtue, were so degraded by the laws and the state of society in which they lived, that when the alternative was offered to them, they uniformly preferred to die like cowards.

ON THE SUPERSTITIONS OF HIGHLANDERS AND LONDONERS.

POPULAR superstitions are always popular subjects with London readers. As an apology for paying them so much attention, we gravely expatiate on their importance in throwing light on the character of a people. True enough, as applied to certain inquirers into manners and customs, and dealers in national antiquities. But how comes it that this sort of reading is generally in favour with those who care not a doit about these matters? Doubtless our love of the strange and the marvellous has some share in creating this partiality; and, as far as that goes, I have not a word to say against it. However, there is a more subtle, and therefore a more mischievous feeling. A man who flatters himself he is in no degree superstitious, is apt to gratify his vanity in the opportunity of looking down upon his fellows; and the conscious man is glad to imagine that others are greater fools than himself. For we always think a cap and bells are ten times more ridiculous on another's head than on our own, especially if there is a slight difference in the fashions. I have heard a sailor, with a child's caul suspended from his neck, laugh till "his lungs began to crow like chanticleer" at the idea of a camphor-bag as a talisman. And who dares laugh at the sailor? Not the London public, surely. They are in the same predicament. While they halt upon crutches, they should not make a jest of bandy legs. Yet they encourage every kind of story exposing the foibles of their neighbours, while they keep their own in a corner, as cordials for private use, and, like dram-drinkers in a sly way, are worse than your bare-faced tipplers. How many works there are, putting those on foreign countries out of the question, where, directly or indirectly, the Irish and the Welsh, the Highlander and the Lowland Scotch, the English divided into counties, and again subdivided into districts, have claimed attention to their several fire-side mythologies, chiefly with an eye to London patronage. Among these the Highland superstitions stand pre-emi

nent.

The famous Scotch novelist has revelled in them, and to some purpose. They formed the pivot of Dr. Johnson's circumvolutions among the hills. They are the allspice of Pennant's mouldy Antiquities, preserving them still upon our shelves. Our Northern Tours, our Highland Guides, nay the very road-books, have a hit at them. And lo! that indefatigable lady, Mrs. Grant, has given us two volumes of Essays expressly upon them. Now, how comes it that the wise inhabitants of the capital presume to chuckle over these stories?— Would they make us believe they have none of their own ?-Do they go on the maxim, that those who laugh most are least likely to be laughed at ?--Impudent rogues! But I can forbear no longer. Know, then, I have been a spy among you, have narrowly watched you, carefully noted down all your mental delinquencies, beginning at the largest streets and squares (not forgetting the gaming-houses-a rich store), and gradually descending to your smallest lanes and alleys, have classed them according to their several demerits, and in due time intend to throw them at your heads in the shape of a pleasant quarte. The booksellers indeed, and they well know their chapmen, allege that the sale must necessarily be limited to country customers. I heed them not-publish I will. In the mean time, being somewhat impatient on this matter, I will give them a slap, by way of prologue, as threatened in the heading of this article. It seems a good subject for the Magazine. The only objection is, there may be "offence in it" to the town readers. However, I promise, as a make-peace, to introduce, for their amusement and instruction, two or three traditionary tales from my collection of Highland Wonders. Besides, the offence-takers have it in their power to skip over the objectionable

passages.

In turning over the MSS. hereafter to be condensed into my intended quarto, I find there are innumerable proofs, from the earliest to the present times, of the extreme credulity of Londoners in all matters relating to the supernatural. Some of these must not be passed over. A prognostication of a partial deluge in 1524, which was assuredly to wash the city into the Thames, had the effect of creating such an alarming hydrophobia, that triple rents were offered for temporary residences at Highgate, Hampstead, and Harrow-on-the-Hill. this, you will say, happened in the days of ignorance. Let us then take a jump to 1750, a more enlightened period. In that year a madcap Life-Guardsman prophesied that on the 5th of April an earthquake would reduce both London and Westminster to a heap of ruins. The account I have before me states, that on the evening of the preceding day, "multitudes of the inhabitants abandoned their houses, and retired into the country; the roads were thronged with carriages of persons of fashion; the principal places within twenty miles of London were so crowded, that lodgings were procured at a most extravagant price; the less wealthy took refuge in boats on the river; and the fields adjacent were crowded with people." Bravo! And to crown all, instead of taking it quietly, they turned round upon the soldier, called him a stupid fellow, clapped him into prison, and endeavoured to wreak their vengeance by pelting him with sundry old

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