mit of wickedness, and integrity would have
disappeared utterly. Seneca long ago made the right criticism. Hoc
maiores nostri questi sunt, hoc nos querimur, hoc posteri nostri
querentur, eversos esse mores.... At ista stant loco eodem. Perhaps
Le Roy was thinking particularly of that curious book the Apology for
Herodotus, in which the eminent Greek scholar, Henri Estienne, exposed
with Calvinistic prejudice the iniquities of modern times and the
corruption of the Roman Church. [Footnote: L'Introduction au traite
de la conformite des merveilles anciennes avec les modernes, ou traite
preparatif a l'Apologie pour Herodote, ed. Ristelhuber, 2 vols., 1879.
The book was published in 1566.]

But if we are to judge by past experience, does it not follow that this
modern age must go the same way as the great ages of the past which
it rivals or even surpasses? Our civilisation, too, having reached
perfection, will inevitably decline and pass away: is not this the clear
lesson of history? Le Roy does not shirk the issue; it is the point to
which his whole exposition has led and he puts it vividly.

"If the memory of the past is the instruction of the present and the
premonition of the future, it is to be feared that having reached
so great excellence, power, wisdom, studies, books, industries
will decline, as has happened in the past, and disappear--confusion
succeeding to the order and perfection of to-day, rudeness to
civilisation, ignorance to knowledge. I already foresee in imagination
nations, strange in form, complexion, and costume, overwhelming
Europe--like the Goths, Huns, Vandals, Lombards, Saracens of
old--destroying our cities and palaces, burning our libraries,
devastating all that is beautiful. I foresee in all countries wars,
domestic and foreign, factions and heresies which will profane all
things human and divine; famines, plagues, and floods; the universe
approaching an end, world-wide confusion, and the return of things to
their original chaos." [Footnote: It is characteristic of the age that
in the last sentence the author goes beyond the issue and contemplates
the possibility which still haunted men's minds that the end of the
world might not be far off.]

But having conducted us to this pessimistic conclusion Le Roy finds
it repugnant, and is unwilling to acquiesce in it. Like an embarrassed
dramatist he escapes from the knot which he has tied by introducing the
deus ex machina.

"However much these thi