Excerpt from The Life and Services of Andrew G. Curtin: An Address History is full of pointed examples teaching that the nation that has outlived heroism has ever dated its decline and fall. After a thousand years of Roman greatness the mistress of the world struggled in the agonies of death for two centuries, and regardless of its matchless record of distinction in every quality of hu man achievement, during the two hundred years of its decay it did not produce a single great hero, statesman, philosopher, poet, sculptor, or painter. When heroism perished in Rome, Rome perished; and the' barbarian from the Northern forests swarmed upon her hills, van quished her enfeebled legions, reveled in the halls of the Caesars, razed her monuments of mastery to the earth, and the God of nations seemed to have given over the once ruler of empire to the lines of confusion and the stones of emptiness. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.