The frequent vicissitudes and reverses of fortune, which nations have
experienced on that very ground where the arts have prospered, are probably
the effects of a busy, inventive, and versatile spirit, by which men have
carried every national change to extremes. They have raised the fabric of
despotic empire to its greatest height, where they had best understood the
foundations of freedom. They perished in the flames which they themselves
had kindled; and they only, perhaps, were capable of displaying, by turns,
the greatest improvements, or the lowest corruptions, to which the human
mind can be brought.
On this scene, mankind have twice, within the compass of history, ascended
from rude beginnings to very high degrees of refinement. In every age,
whether destined by its temporary disposition to build, or to destroy, they
have left the vestiges of an active and vehement spirit. The pavement and
the ruins of Rome are buried in dust, shaken from the feet of barbarians,
who trod with contempt on the refinements of luxury, and spurned those
arts, the use of which it was reserved for the posterity of the same people
to discover and to admire.
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