12.  Nor are we to wonder at this event.  In the course of human affairs there is no stability, nothing secure or permanent.  It is with our minds as with our bodies:  the latter, as soon as they have attained their full growth, and seem to flourish in the vigour of health, begin, from that moment, to feel the gradual approaches of decay.  Our intellectual powers proceed in the same manner; they gain strength by degrees, they arrive at maturity, and, when they can no longer improve, they languish, droop, and fade away.  This is the law of nature, to which every age, and every nation, of which we have any historical records, have been obliged to submit.  There is besides another general law, hard perhaps, but wonderfully ordained, and it is this:  nature, whose operations are always simple and uniform, never suffers in any age or country, more than one great example of perfection in the kind [a].  This was the case in Greece, that prolific parent of genius and of science.  She had but one Homer, one Plato, one Demosthenes.  The same has happened at Rome:  Virgil stands at the head of his art, and Cicero is still unrivalled.  During a space of seven hundred years our ancestors were struggling to reach the summit of perfection:  Cicero at length arose; he thundered forth his immortal energy, and nature was satisfied with the wonder she had made.  The force of genius could go no further.  A new road to fame was to be found.  We aimed at wit, and gay conceit, and glittering sentences.  The change, indeed, was great; but it naturally followed the new form of government.  Genius died with public liberty.

13.  We find that the discourse of men always conforms to the temper of the times.  Among savage nations [a] language is never copious.  A few words serve the purpose of barbarians, and those are always uncouth and harsh, without the artifice of connection; short, abrupt, and nervous.  In a state of polished society, where a single ruler sways the sceptre, the powers of the mind take a softer tone, and language grows more refined.  But affectation follows, and precision gives way to delicacy.  The just and natural expression is no longer the fashion.  Living in ease and luxury, men look for elegance, and hope by novelty to give a grace to adulation.  In other nations, where the first principles of the civil union are maintained in vigour; where the people live under the government of laws, and not the will of man; where the spirit of liberty pervades all ranks and orders of the state; where every individual holds himself bound, at the hazard of his life, to defend the constitution framed by his ancestors; where, without being guilty of an impious crime, no man dares to violate the rights of the whole community; in such a state, the national eloquence will be prompt, bold, and animated.  Should internal dissensions shake the public peace, or foreign enemies threaten to invade the land, Eloquence comes forth arrayed in terror; she wields her thunder,