The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-01 00:00:00

.
MAGAZINE DAY.
BLACK: W 0
An unusual variety of articles charecterises 131aek-
'rood for June ; but from the inferences which are de-
duced from it, and the scholarship which is evidenced in
its composition, the disserta'ion upon the "Fall of
Rome" assuites the most prominent position. In the
writer of tllis paper we recognise either a man versed in
classic tire, and willing, for the sake of an ingenious hy,-
Pothesis, to contort the significance of past events to a
particular meaning, or one who, while imbued with a
iteowledge of the occurrences of antiquit, regards
them only through the distortion of prejudice.y We are
inclined to attribute the unphilosophical arguments
contained in his lucubration to the former cause ; espe-
cially as we cannot conceive the possibility of any well-
reading and thinking student being so little of a logician
as to advance reasonings so totally averse to common
sense. Let us sea now what is the precise delinquency
against which we are thus inveighing. It, is, then, as
follows :—The author, as a contributor to Ebony, sees
the advantae.e which might result from, and the credit
Which would be attributed to, a dissertation demonstrat
lag the fallaciousness of those who no v a-days are,
thank God, abolishing the atrocious corn-laws ; and he
Perceives that this credit and this advantage would be
eevent:old if, by any ingenuity of disputation, however
fraeidulent, the question were enforced by some striking
coincidence of fact in ancient history. So far his con
elusions are rational and allowable ; but for the one-
sided purpose of illustrating the protective system in this
manner, he altogether overlooks the greatest duty of a
political economist, and what is equally the chief neces-
sity of a logical commentator, that of adhering strictly
to the honest narration of facts, and of neither tam-
peri.ug with the truthfulness of the historian
for a mere party object, or of imposing upon
the credulity or ignorance of his reader by a
false use of his own erudition. Now, we dis-
tinctly impugn the writer of this dishonesty,
this imposture, and tliis shameful employment of learn-
ing, merely with the view of pandering to the political
partialities of partisanship. He audaciously attempts to
apply the destruction of the Roman empire to the com-
mercial controversy now agitating the English public.
Ile assumes the downfall of that marvellous power as a
fair prototype of what he implies must result from the
establistsment of a free-trade policy in our native coun-
try. he rejects the aphorism of Montesquieu, that the
decay of Roman authority was the natural consequence
of the extension of its territories ; in like manner he
throws aside, as wholly inconclusive, the idea that that
decay originated in the prevalence of serfdom under the
later emperors ; and with the intention of carrying out
his original design, he attributes the " Fall of Rome"
solely and exclusively to the circumstance of its rulers
Permitting the free importation of provisions from its
colonial possessions. According to him, that importa-
tion of corn and cattle from Egypt, and Lybia, and
Sicily, at first enervated and finally extinguished the
agricultural energy of the mother country ; according
to him, a considerable portion of Italy degenerated to
barrenness from a previous state of fertilisation, entirely
from that introduction of foreign grain. Now, sup-
Posing, for the sake of argument, that all these asser-
tions hold good (which they do not !), and that his de.
ductions are correct in regard to the heathen empire
(which we deny !), the whole aim of his rea-
soning is nugatory, the entire fabric of his inferences
falls to the ground, because THERE IS NO SPECIES or
ANALOGY WHATEVER BETWEEN THE POLITICAL OR COM-
DIERC/AL, OR AGRICULTURAL POSITION 05' ENGLAND AND
or Rorie, ! It is an incontrovertible aphorism in logic
that a comparison between two things altogether disimi-
lar is by necessity altogether inadmissible. Now we
can r,leraonstrate, in a few sentances, that the position of
England, and the position of Rome, are two things es-
sentially dissimilar, consequently the comparison of them
le absolutely inadmissible, and, being in admissible,
the conclusions arrived at from that comparison go for
nothing. That, we take it, is an unanswerable propo-
sition. First of all, then, for the non-existence of any
Thing analogous between the Roman and the British
Empires. The Romans were, be it observed, a people
of warriors, a people almost entirely engaged in the
Prosecution of warfare ; the bulk of them was portioned
out in cohorts and legions ; the nation, or more strictly
?peaking, the Roman citizens, travelled in a body, sword
111 hand, upon Gaul, upon Africa, upon Spain, upon
Germany, upon Britain. They conquered those regions
and rend,,red them subsidiary to the great core of au-
th°ritY--to the Great City. A minority of the Romans
were agriculturists in the vicinity of Rome, a minority
of that minority were artizans in the streets of Rome :
but the vast majority of those citizens had carried the
nword, had fought the battle, had swelled the carnage
consequent upon a military government. When, how-
ever, the opportunity of engaging in warfare had
become a matter, well nigh of impossibility, from
the circumstance of the Romans having subverted
nearly the whole of the then known world by
their own indomitable prowess, and under the lea-
dership of Caesar, and Pompey, and Trajan, and so
forth, a continuance of their former exertions was
rendered unnecessary. A comparatively insignificant
force—a standing army—was scattered at intervals
upon the frontiers of the colossal empire to awe the
new subjeets into submission, and to assert the dor-
mant strength of Rome in case of an emergency. By
this state of things the citizens may be said literally to
have "retired from business " for the more leisurely
enjoyment of the proceeds of their labour. Subsidiary
nations tilled the ground, and worked the mine, and ir-
rigated the soil, and reaped the harvest " in the sweat
eti their brow " for the support of the luxurious and
indolent Romans : so prodigious was the wealth of the
Romans that home labour became absolutely super-
fluous. While the rest of the world was drudging to
administer food and raiment to the rulers of the
World, those rulers saw no reason to trouble them-
selves with any effort, save an effort for the eaten-
sion of their amusements. Their slaves-those slaves
who in the struggling days of Rome had populated the
workshops and the homesteads—were now enlisted as
accessories to the recreations of their Epicurean mas-
ters. Gladiators wrestled in the amphitheatres, the
great city became the arena of one interminable car-
nival, every individual Roman lived a life of the most
Profligate extravagance, the most consummate luxury,
the most unremitting idleness. Their limbs were hence
enfeebled by effiminacy, their courage was emasculated ;
Political imbecility supervened upon social abandon-
Ment ; their warriors struggled homewards and were
Bc'eu swallowed up in the contagion of indolent
enjoyment, until the cohorts which they had de-
serwere composed in time of enlisted bar-
k-Jana and mercenary swordsmen. These we con-
ceive to be the real motors in the fall of Rome,"
:letrl.n.ot the free importation of provisions. After de-
andDing, as we have just done, the political, commercial,
•-et'''—icultural condition of that empire, it is surely
unnecessary to particularise the precise want of analogy
be between it and the position of Great Britain—their dis-
similarity is so glaring and so undeniable. The Romans,
~.1t ..yr. have said, were luxurious revellers, simultaneously
h the free importation of provisions; we English
.._are a striving, labouring, agricultural mercantile,
Cl
'4,asso:ley ge-ettin race : our midle class our chief
; w eag d
t our bread by the sweatis of our brow.
Napoleon called us, rightly enough, a nation of shop-
keepers ; and such will continue our position when free
trade comes into operation. We possess vast factories
through the medium of which our home-made merchan-
dise may be exchanged for whatever corn, or wine, or
oil, or oxen will be imported. Had the Romani these'
factories? We possess such advantages in scientific
knowledge, as applied to agriculture, that our farmers
are second to none in the wide world. Had the Romans
these advantages? Our princes are mostly devoted to
agricultural pursuits, at the moment when free trade is
Proposed. Were the Roman patricians so in like manner?
Our country is threaded with a multitude of railways,
Whereby it is but a step from the corn-field to the corn-
narkr.tt, from the pasture land to the butcher's sham-
eta!, rendering competition with remote growers of grain
anra fatteners of cattle little more than nominal. Had
are their
the Romans these railways?
The questions
Assuredly the
Own emphatic answers in the negative.
dissimilarity between the state of Rome and England
panao
d
t
any am
co Preposterously evident, that
the matter would be an egregiousiml)
impertinence. We
,have already (and our readers must in candour admit
it) proved clearly that nothing analogous subsists be-
tween those two things; reason has allraerady informed us
things is logic-
that a comparison of two such dissimilar
ally inadmissible, and, being inadmissible,und. the whole
The
argument necessarily drops to the ground.
is, therefore, an
In Blackwood on the
"Fall
of
R°me
because it is spe-
ciously, nonentity. is,
eiously, and learnedllyt, however,elegantly written, and be-
cause, on these accounts, it might possibly mislead the
unreflective, that we have deemed it fitting to disclose
its inconsistency and absurdity at such a length. We
coMmend our foregoing observations to the serious at-
tendon of the writer in old Maga. "Rogues in Out-
line" are amusing sketches of character, coloured with
sarc
we reg-aasm, and predncilled with smartness. " Elinodr
Travis" as a very mawkish, exaggerated,
and, in some portions, an extremely vulgar attempt at
romance. Christopher, our brave old Christopher
North, must have been in a singular good-
humour when admitting this first of three chapters into
his fastidious .Ebo,,
rd the
Fox" is another of ttose
The criticism " Reyna
erroneously desi upon what is
gnated trushing satires
which Blackwood has 31 Cockney school of poetry, in
sure, " Greek Fire and avays evinced such a plea-
hich will infinitellynprhowder" is an antiquarian
morfeau w
than satisfy those
who take an interest in the progresslon of science and in-
soefieLnotrdcßrougham's
nveonbtlieonw.orkA
urpatohnerthdeesuliltteorrayryn and
• characters
accnt euir
George
o f t hjens
ep
who flourished during the reign of
hgazine,
mences a very admirable number
Banks
though in it we think. the influence of Si,,
as a minor Macaanas is somewhat under it