y yields to the more imperious passion of avarice. The
prospect of gain will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleto;
every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is subdued by the hopes of an
inheritance, or even of a legacy; and a wealthy childless citizen is
the most powerful of the Romans. The art of obtaining the signature of
a favorable testament, and sometimes of hastening the moment of its
execution, is perfectly understood; and it has happened, that in the
same house, though in different apartments, a husband and a wife, with
the laudable design of overreaching each other, have summoned their
respective lawyers, to declare, at the same time, their mutual, but
contradictory, intentions. The distress which follows and chastises
extravagant luxury, often reduces the great to the use of the most
humiliating expedients. When they desire to borrow, they employ the base
and supplicating style of the slave in the comedy; but when they are
called upon to pay, they assume the royal and tragic declamation of the
grandsons of Hercules. If the demand is repeated, they readily procure
some trusty sycophant, instructed to maintain a charge of poison,
or magic, against the insolent creditor; who is seldom released from
prison, till he has signed a discharge of the whole debt. These vices,
which degrade the moral character of the Romans, are mixed with a
puerile superstition, that disgraces their understanding. They listen
with confidence to the predictions of haruspices, who pretend to
read, in the entrails of victims, the signs of future greatness and
prosperity; and there are many who do not presume either to bathe, or
to dine, or to appear in public, till they have diligently consulted,
according to the rules of astrology, the situation of Mercury, and the
aspect of the moon. It is singular enough, that this vain credulity may
often be discovered among the profane sceptics, who impiously doubt, or
deny, the existence of a celestial power."

_Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By Barbarians.--Part III._

In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures,
the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the
dexterity or labor of their hands, are commonly the most prolific,
the most useful, and, in that sense, the most respectable part of the
community. But the plebeians of Rome, who disdained such sedentary and
servile arts, had been oppressed from the earliest t