She need not be ashamed of the
vestiges of her children. How gladly the antiquary informs us
that their vessels penetrated into this frith, or up that river
of some remote isle! Their military monuments still remain on
the hills and under the sod of the valleys. The oft-repeated
Roman story is written in still legible characters in every
quarter of the Old World, and but to-day, perchance, a new coin
is dug up whose inscription repeats and confirms their fame.
Some "_Judaea Capta_" with a woman mourning under a palm-tree,
with silent argument and demonstration confirms the pages of
history.
"Rome living was the world's sole ornament;
And dead is now the world's sole monument.
. . . . .
With her own weight down pressed now she lies,
And by her heaps her hugeness testifies."
If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a
fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see still upon the
walls of the temple of Minerva the circular marks made by the
shields taken from the enemy in the Persian war, which were
suspended there.
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