Calendar: 1855-1856 Page 361

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 357 Into the mists of fabling time So far runs back the praise Of beauty which disdains to climb Along forbidden ways That scorns temptation power defies Where mutual love is not And to the tomb for rescue flies When life would be blot -Wordswortu -Crandatc into Eattn $voSc The Roman jurisprudence was adorned by the incomparable genius of Cicero which converts into gold every object that it touches After the example of Plato he composed Republic and for the use of his republic treatise of laws in which he would deduce from celestial origin the wisdom and justice of the Roman constitution The whole universe according to his sublime hypothesis forms one immense commonwealth gods and men who partake of the same essence are members of the same community reason prescribes the law of nature and nations and all positive institutions however affected by custom or accident are drawn from the rule of right which the Deity has inscribed on every virtuous mind From these philosophical mysteries he mildly excludes the sceptics who will not believe and the Epicureans who are unwilling to act The latter disdain the care of the republic he lets them slumber in their shady gardens But he humbly prays that the new Academy would be silent since her bold objections would too soon destroy the fair and well-built structure of his lofty system Plato Aristotle and Zeno he represents as the only teachers who arm and instruct citizen for the duties of social life Of these the armour of the stoics was found to be of the firmest temper and it was chiefly worn both for use and ornament in the schools of jurisprudence From the portico the Roman civilians heard how to live to reason and to die but they imbibed in some degree the prejudices of the sect the love of paradox the pertinacious habits of dispute and minute attachment to words and verbal distinctions Gibbon