To the student of political history, and to the English student above all
others, the conversion of the Roman Republic into a military empire
commands a peculiar interest. Notwithstanding many differences, the
English and the Romans essentially resemble one another. The early Romans
possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of whom we have
historical knowledge, with the one exception of ourselves. In virtue of
their temporal freedom, they became the most powerful nation in the known
world; and their liberties perished only when Rome became the mistress of
conquered races, to whom she was unable or unwilling to extend her
privileges. If England was similarly supreme, if all rival powers were
eclipsed by her or laid under her feet, the Imperial tendencies, which are
as strongly marked in us as our love of liberty, might lead us over the
same course to the same end. If there be one lesson which history clearly
teaches, it is this, that free nations cannot govern subject provinces. If
they are unable or unwilling to admit their dependencies to share their
own constitution, the constitution itself will fall in pieces from mere
incompetence for its duties.

We talk often foolishly of the necessities of things, and we blame
circumstances for the consequences of our own follies and vices; but there
are faults which are not faults of will, but faults of mere inadequacy to
some unforeseen position. Human nature is equal to much, but not to
everything. It can rise to altitudes where it is alike unable to sustain
itself or to retire from them to a safer elevation. Yet when the field is
open it pushes forward, and moderation in the pursuit of greatness is
never learnt and never will be learnt. Men of genius are governed by their
instinct; they follow where instinct leads them; and the public life of a
nation is but the life of successive generations of statesmen, whose
horizon is bounded, and who act from day to day as immediate interests