ess of his paternal cares, _we_ may inherit and enjoy the
everlasting legacy.

A closer survey will indeed reduce the value of the gift, and the
gratitude of posterity: in the possession of these Imperial treasures we
may still deplore our poverty and ignorance; and the fading glories
of their authors will be obliterated by indifference or contempt. The
Basilics will sink to a broken copy, a partial and mutilated version, in
the Greek language, of the laws of Justinian; but the sense of the
old civilians is often superseded by the influence of bigotry: and the
absolute prohibition of divorce, concubinage, and interest for money,
enslaves the freedom of trade and the happiness of private life. In the
historical book, a subject of Constantine might admire the inimitable
virtues of Greece and Rome: he might learn to what a pitch of energy
and elevation the human character had formerly aspired. But a contrary
effect must have been produced by a new edition of the lives of the
saints, which the great logothete, or chancellor of the empire, was
directed to prepare; and the dark fund of superstition was enriched by
the fabulous and florid legends of Simon the _Metaphrast_. The merits
and miracles of the whole calendar are of less account in the eyes of a
sage, than the toil of a single husbandman, who multiplies the gifts
of the Creator, and supplies the food of his brethren. Yet the royal
authors of the _Geoponics_ were more seriously employed in expounding
the precepts of the destroying art, which had been taught since the days
of Xenophon, as the art of heroes and kings. But the _Tactics_ of Leo
and Constantine are mingled with the baser alloy of the age in which
they lived. It was destitute of original genius; they implicitly
transcribe the rules and maxims which had been confirmed by victories.
It was unskilled in the propriety of style and method; they blindly
confound the most distant and discordant institutions, the phalanx of
Sparta and that of Macedon, the legions of Cato and Trajan, of Augustus
and Theodosius. Even the use, or at least the importance, of these
military rudiments may be fairly questioned: their general theory is
dictated by reason; but the merit, as well as difficulty, consists
in the application. The discipline of a soldier is formed by exercise
rather than by study: the talents of a commander are appropriated to
those calm, though rapid, minds, which nature produces to decide the
fate of armies and