From such vestiges of _derivative_ grandeur, propagated to ages so
remote from itself, and sustained by manners so different from the spirit
of her own,--we may faintly measure the strength of the original impulse
given to the feelings of men by the _sacred_ majesty of the Roman
throne. How potent must that splendor have been, whose mere reflection
shot rays upon a distant crown, under another heaven, and across the
wilderness of fourteen centuries! Splendor, thus transmitted, thus
sustained, and thus imperishable, argues a transcendent in the basis of
radical power. Broad and deep must those foundations have been laid, which
could support an "arch of empire" rising to that giddy altitude--an
altitude which sufficed to bring it within the ken of posterity to the
sixtieth generation.
Power is measured by resistance. Upon such a scale, if it were applied
with skill, the _relations_ of greatness in Rome to the greatest of
all that has gone before her, and has yet come after her, would first be
adequately revealed. The youngest reader will know that the grandest forms
in which the _collective_ might of the human race has manifested
itself, are the four monarchies.
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