No More Learning

To headlong ruin see whole houses driven,
Cursed with their prayers, by too indulgent heaven.

The several passions and aspirations of mankind, successively
examined in the light of legend and history, prove how hollow, if not
pernicious, are the principal objects of pursuit. Wealth is one of the
commonest aims.

But avarice spreads her deadly snare,
And hoards amassed with too successful care.
For wealth, in the black days, at Nero's word,
The ruffian bands unsheathed the murderous sword.
Cut-throats commissioned by the government
Are seldom to an empty garret sent.
The traveller freighted with a little wealth,
Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth:
Even then he fears the bludgeon and the blade--
Starts in the moonlight at a rush's shade,
While, void of care, the beggar trips along,
And to the robber's face will troll his song.

What would the "weeping" and the "laughing" sages of ancient Greece
have thought of the pageants of modern Rome? Consider the vanity of
ambition. It is illustrated by the downfall of the powerful minister
Sejanus. On his overthrow, the fickle mob turned savagely upon his
statues.

What think the people? They!
They follow fortune, as of old, and hate
With all their soul the victim of the state.
Yet in this very hour that self-same crowd
Had hailed Sejanus with a shout as loud,
If his designs (by fortune's favour blessed)
Had prospered, and the aged prince oppressed;
For since our votes have been no longer bought,
All public care has vanished from our thought.
Romans, who once with unresisted sway,
Gave armies, empire, everything, away,
For two poor claims have long renounced the whole
And only ask--the circus and a dole.

Would you rather be an instance of fallen greatness, or enjoy some
safe post in an obscure Italian town? What ruined a Crassus? Or a
Pompey? Or a victorious Caesar? Why, the realisation of their own
soaring desires.

Another vain aspiration covets fame in eloquence. But the gift
of oratory overthrew the two greatest orators of Greece and
Rome--Demosthenes and Cicero. If Cicero had only stuck to his bad
verses, he would never have earned Antony's deadly hatred by his
"Second Philippic" (see Vol. IX, p. 155).

"I do congratulate the Roman state
Which my great consulate did recreate! "
If he had always used such jingling words
He might have scorned Mark Antony's swords.

A different passion is for renown in war. What is the end of it all?
Only an epitaph on a tombstone, and tombstones themselves perish; for
even a tree may split them!