The origin of this difficulty we shall soon
understand.] wit could as little fathom as the fleets of Caesar could
traverse the Polar basin, or unlock the gates of the Pacific, are best
symbolized, and find their most appropriate exponent, in the illimitable
city itself--that Rome, whose centre, the Capitol, was immovable as
Teneriffe or Atlas, but whose circumference was shadowy, uncertain,
restless, and advancing as the frontiers of her all-conquering empire. It
is false to say, that with Caesar came the destruction of Roman greatness.
Peace, hollow rhetoricians! Until Caesar came, Rome was a minor; by him,
she attained her majority, and fulfilled her destiny. Caius Julius, you
say, deflowered the virgin purity of her civil liberties. Doubtless, then,
Rome had risen immaculate from the arms of Sylla and of Marius. But, if it
were Caius Julius who deflowered Rome, if under him she forfeited her
dowery of civic purity, if to him she first unloosed her maiden zone, then
be it affirmed boldly--that she reserved her greatest favors for the
noblest of her wooers, and we may plead the justification of Falconbridge
for his mother's trangression with the lion-hearted king--such a sin was
self-ennobled.
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