Lectures and Essays

Lectures and Essays

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Title: Lectures and Essays
Author: Goldwin Smith
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LECTURES AND ESSAYS
BY
GOLDWIN SMITH

PREFATORY NOTE.
These papers have been reprinted for friends who sometimes ask for the
back numbers of periodicals in which they appeared. The great public
is sick of reprints, and with good reason.
The volume might almost have been called Contributions to Canadian
Literature, for of the papers not originally published in Canada several
were reproduced in Canadian journals. Political subjects have been
excluded both to keep a volume intended for friends free from anything
of a party character and because the writer looks forward to putting the
thoughts scattered over his political essays and reviews into a more
connected form.
The papers on 'The Early Years of the Conqueror of Quebec,' 'A
Wirepuller of Kings,' 'A True Captain of Industry' and 'Early Years of
Abraham Lincoln' can hardly pretend to be more than accounts of
books to which they relate, but they interested some of their readers at
the time and there are probably not many copies of the books in Canada.
All the papers have been revised, so that they do not appear here
exactly as they were in the periodicals from which they are reprinted.
TORONTO, Feb. 16, 1881

CONTENTS.

THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS (_Contemporary Review_)
THE GREATNESS OF ENGLAND (_Contemporary Review._)
THE GREAT DUEL OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
(_Canadian Monthly_)
THE LAMPS OF FICTION (_A Speech on the Centenary of the Birth
of Sir Walter Scott_)
AN ADDRESS TO THE OXFORD SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND
ART
THE ASCENT OF MAN (_Macmillan's Magazine._)
THE PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR RELIGION (_Macmillan's
Magazine._)
THE LABOUR MOVEMENT (_Canadian Monthly._)
WHAT IS CULPABLE LUXURY? (_Canadian Monthly._)
A TRUE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY (_Canadian Monthly._)
A WIREPULLER OF KINGS (_Canadian Monthly._)
THE EARLY YEARS OF THE CONQUEROR OF QUEBEC
(_Toronto Nation._)
FALKLAND AND THE PURITANS (_Contemporary Review._)
THE EARLY YEARS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN (_Toronto Mail_)
ALFREDUS REX FUNDATOR (_Canadian Monthly_)
THE LAST REPUBLICANS OF ROME (_MacMillan's Magazine_)
AUSTEN LEIGH'S MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN (_New York
Nation_)
PATTISON'S MILTON (_New York Nation_)
CLERIDGE'S LIFE OF KEBLE (_New York Nation_)

THE GREATNESS OF THE ROMANS
Rome was great in arms, in government, in law. This combination was
the talisman of her august fortunes. But the three things, though
blended in her, are distinct from each other, and the political analyst is
called upon to give a separate account of each. By what agency was
this State, out of all the States of Italy, out of all the States of the world,
elected to a triple pre-eminence, and to the imperial supremacy of
which, it was the foundation? By what agency was Rome chosen as the
foundress of an empire which we regard almost as a necessary step in
human development, and which formed the material, and to no small
extent the political matrix of modern Europe, though the spiritual life of

our civilization is derived from another source? We are not aware that
this question has ever been distinctly answered, or even distinctly
propounded. The writer once put it to a very eminent Roman
antiquarian, and the answer was a quotation from Virgil--
"Hoc nemus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice clivum Quis deus incertum
est, habitat Deus; Arcades ipsum Credunt se vidisae Jovem cum saepe
nigrantem AEgida concuteret dextra nimbosque cieret."
This perhaps was the best answer that Roman patriotism, ancient or
modern, could give; and it certainly was