From one of our inns was a sign taken down.
And sent by some wags to a neighbouring town.
To a limb of the law the freak caus’d much vexation,
And he went through the streets making wild lamentation;
And breathing revenge on the frolicsome sparks,
Who, he had not a doubt, were the “gentlemen clerks.”[363]
From the prophets methinks we may inference draw
To prove how perverse was this man of the law.
For we find it inscrib’d in the pages divine—
“A perverse generation looks after a sign!”
[363] A favourite expression of the legal gentleman alluded to.
THE ROMANS.
The whole early part of the Roman history is very problematical. It is hardly possible to suppose the Romans could have made so conspicuous a figure in Italy, and not be noticed by Herodotus, who finished his history in Magna Græcia. Neither is Rome mentioned by Aristotle, though he particularly describes the government of Carthage. Livy, a writer by no means void of national prejudice, expressly says, they had never heard of Alexander; and here we surely may say in the words of the poet,
“Not to know him, argues themselves unknown.”
Pliny, it is true, quotes a passage of Theophrastus, to show that a certain Greek writer, named Clitarchus, mentions an embassy from the Romans to Alexander; but this can never be set against the authority of Livy, especially as Quintilian gives no very favourable opinion of the veracity of the Greek historian in these words,—“Clitarchi, probatur ingenium, fides infamatur.”[364]