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or other nutritive grain; and the simple practice of the mechanic trades. Private genius and public industry may be extirpated; but these hardy plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into the most unfavorable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and Trajan were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance; and the Barbarians subverted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the invention or emblem of Saturn, still continued annually to mow the harvests of Italy; and the human feasts of the Lęstrigons have never been renewed on the coast of Campania. Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and religious zeal have diffused, among the savages of the Old and New World, these inestimable gifts: they have been successively propagated; they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race. End Vol. 3
Volume 4
Chapter XXXIX:
Gothic Kingdom Of Italy.
Part I. Zeno And Anastasius, Emperors Of The East. -- Birth, Education, And First Exploits Of Theodoric The Ostrogoth. -- His Invasion And Conquest Of Italy. -- The Gothic Kingdom Of Italy. -- State Of The West. -- Military And Civil Government. -- The Senator Boethius. -- Last Acts And Death Of Theodoric. After the fall of the Roman empire in the West, an interval of fifty years, till the memorable reign of Justinian,