so soon as indolence and luxury became the characteristics of the
ruling classes of Rome, the downfall of the empire, sooner or
later, was inevitable.

There is, perhaps, no tendency of our nature that has to be more
carefully guarded against than indolence. When Mr. Gurney asked
an intelligent foreigner who had travelled over the greater part
of the world, whether he had observed any one quality which, more
than another, could be regarded as a universal characteristic of
our species, his answer was, in broken English, "Me tink dat all
men LOVE LAZY." It is characteristic of the savage as of the
despot. It is natural to men to endeavour to enjoy the products
of labour without its toils. Indeed, so universal is this desire,
that James Mill has argued that it was to prevent its indulgence
at the expense of society at large, that the expedient of
Government was originally invented. (2)

Indolence is equally degrading to individuals as to nations.
Sloth never made its mark in the world, and never will. Sloth
never climbed a hill, nor overcame a difficulty that it could
avoid. Indolence always failed in life, and always will. It is
in the nature of things that it should not succeed in anything.
It is a burden, an incumbrance, and a nuisance--always useless,
complaining, melancholy, and miserable.

Burton, in his quaint and curious, book--the only one, Johnson
says, that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he
wished to rise--describes the causes of Melancholy as hingeing
mainly on Idleness. "Idleness," he says, "is the bane of body and
mind, the nurse of naughtiness, the chief mother of all mischief,