General Character of the Romans

Far from the native bed where first it rose, With the ting'd stream the blended mineral flows; So in the current of Rome's distant race The founder in the progeny we trace. Behold how like the kindred features are, Habits, and faults, and virtues, similar: The same proud spirit to subdue the strong, To yield no right, and to endure no wrong; The same ambition's unremitting care, Temperance in peace, and fortitude in war; To let no people but themselves be free, And guard, like life, their own lov'd liberty; As if the common boon of equal heaven, For all design'd, to them alone was given! To bring all duties to one centre home,— Unbounded fondness for their parent Rome. Each wild excess which nature shrinks to hear, Assum'd too oft a patriot character; Disguis'd beneath that all-atoning name, Revenge was justice, and oppression fame. Within its precincts every virtue lies, And swells to vice beyond its boundaries. So, in a Christian state the worst of men, Had been at Rome the worthiest citizen. Remus, who mock'd his brother's new-trac'd town, His ruffian fury to the dust struck down; Cemented thus with parricidal blood, Behold the first rude walls of humble mud; Thus, in the infant settlement was given Earnest of violence, 'gainst man and heaven. At length, the towering fabrick pierc'd the skies, And with the grandeur, see the guilt arise; Her bold aggression stretch'd to every clime, And each new conquest was an added crime. The waste she caus'd, the woes which never ceas'd, With specious names she varnish'd and increas'd; Rome's ruthless sword, and her fallacious tongue, Inflicts the ruin, and imputes the wrong; While plunder'd nations, supplicant in vain, Bore every evil, and heard Rome complain. Sententious, yet ne'er innocently great, The dread and scourge of every harmless state, When her long triumphs her own Caesars clos'd, And on her neck their iron yoke impos'd, Alone she mourn'd her once unrivall'd weal, Nor claim'd the pity she could never feel. What were the virtues of the Roman school? Deep systems to oppress, destroy, and rule; Ambition, pride, and tyranny, combin'd, To raise themselves, and plunder all mankind.