" _Finally_, the colonies were the best means of promoting
tillage, and the culture of vineyards. And though this service, as
regarded the Italian colonies, was greatly defeated in succeeding times by
the ruinous largesses of corn [_frumentationes_], and other vices of the
Roman policy after the vast revolution effected by universal luxury, it is
not the less true that, left to themselves and their natural tendency, the
Roman colonies would have yielded this last benefit as certainly as any
other. Large volumes exist, illustrated by the learning of Rigaltius,
Salmatius, and Goesius, upon the mere technical arrangements of the Roman
colonies. And whose libraries might be written on these same colonies
considered as engines of exquisite state policy.] and by the habits of the
people. This monarchy had been of too slow a growth--too gradual, and too
much according to the regular stages of nature herself in its development,
to have any chance of being other than well cemented; the cohesion of its
parts was intense; seven centuries of growth demand one or two at least
for palpable decay; and it is only for harlequin empires like that of
Napoleon, run up with the rapidity of pantomime, to fall asunder under the
instant reaction of a few false moves in politics, or a single unfortunate
campaign.
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