Thompson tells me you are writing a Roman History. But you have not been
asked to Lecture at the Ipswich Mechanics' Institution, as I have--'any
subject except controversial Divinity, and party Politics.' In the
meantime I have begun Livy: I have read one book, and can't help looking
at the four thick octavos that remain--
Oh beate Sesti,
Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. {97}
But it is very stately reading. As to old Niebuhr, it is mean to attack
old legends that can't defend themselves. And what does it signify in
the least if they are true or not? Whoever _actively_ believed that
Romulus was suckled by a wolf? But I have found in Horace a proper motto
for those lumbering Germans:
Quis Parthum paveat? quis gelidum Scythen?
Quis Germania quos horrida parturit
Foetus? {98}
_To Bernard Barton_.
[GELDESTONE, _Jan_. 1842.]