driven off the land and was crowded into towns. The rich were extravagant, for life had ceased to have practical interest, except for its material pleasures; the occupation of the higher classes was to obtain money without labour, and to spend it in idle enjoyment. Patriotism survived on the lips, but patriotism meant the ascendency of the party which would maintain the existing order of things, or would overthrow it for a more equal distribution of the good things which alone were valued. Religion, once the foundation of the laws and rule of personal conduct, had subsided into opinion. The educated, in their hearts, disbelieved it. Temples were still built with increasing splendour; the established forms were scrupulously observed. Public men spoke conventionally of Providence, that they might throw on their opponents the odium of impiety; but of genuine belief that life had any serious meaning, there was none remaining beyond the circle of the silent, patient, ignorant multitude. The whole spiritual atmosphere was saturated with cant—cant moral, cant political, cant religious; an affectation of high principle which had ceased to touch the conduct, and flowed on in an increasing volume of insincere and unreal speech."
Social resemblances between widely different ages may be interesting and instructive even when they are little more than superficial; they become dangerous only when they are made the basis of false political parallelisms; and, unlike some writers of the day, Mr Froude has avoided this error. Yet when he says that "on the great subjects of human interest, on morals and politics, on poetry and art, even on religion itself and the speculative problems of life, men (in Cæsar's time) thought as we think, doubted where we doubt, argued as we argue, aspired and struggled after the same objects," he is surely stating an analogy too much as if it were an identity. The moral and mental history of modern
