Poor Cicero might indeed have asked the question seven or eight centuries
after, in days falsely said to be civilized to a state of perfection;
when his most inhuman murder near this town, completed the measure of
their crimes; who to their country’s fate added that of its philosopher,
its orator, its acknowledged father and preserver.--Cruel, ungrateful
Rome! ever crimson with the blood of its own best citizens--theatre of
civil discord and proscriptions, unheard of in any history but her’s;
who, next to Jerusalem in sins, has been next in sufferings too; though
twice so highly favoured by Heaven--from the dreadful moment when all
her power was at once crushed by barbarism, and even her language
rendered _dead_ among mankind--to the present hour, when even her second
splendours, like the last gleams of an _aurora borealis_, fade gradually
from the view, and sink almost imperceptibly into decay. Nor can the
exemplary virtues and admirable conduct of _this_, and of her four last
princes, redeem her from ruin long threatened to her past tyrannical
offences; any more than could the merits of Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus
Pius compensate for the crimes of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero.--Let the
death of Cicero, which inspired this rhapsody, contribute to excuse it;
and let me turn my eyes to the bewitching spot--
Where Circe dwelt, the daughter of the day.
That such enchantresses should inhabit such regions could have been
scarce a wonder in Homer’s time I trow; the same country still retains
the same power of producing singers, to whom our English may with
propriety enough cry out;
----Hail, _foreign_ wonder!
Whom certes our rough shades did never breed.