Cowley speaks of-- "Vitellius' table, which did hold As many creatures as the ark of old." "They eat," said Seneca, "and then they vomit; they vomit, and then they eat." But even in this matter we cannot tell anything like the worst facts about-- "Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts On citron tables and Atlantic stone, Their wines of Setia, Gales, and Falerne, Chios, and Crete, and how they quaff in gold, Crystal, and myrrhine cups, embossed with gems And studs of pearl." [19] Still less can we pretend to describe the unblushing and unutterable degradation of this period as it is revealed to us by the poets and the satirists.

"All things," says Seneca, "are full of iniquity and vice; more crime is committed than can be remedied by restraint.

We struggle in a huge contest of criminality: daily the passion for sin is greater, the shame in committing it is less....

Wickedness is no longer committed in secret: it flaunts before our eyes, and "The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems, ...

whatever is known Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs, Neptunian Albion's high testaceous food, And flavoured Chian wines, with incense fumed, To slake patrician thirst: for these their rights In the vile atreets they prostitute for sale, Their ancient rights, their dignities, their laws, Their native glorious freedom.
has been sent forth so openly into public sight, and has prevailed so completely in the breast of all, that innocence is not _rare_, but _non-existent_." [Footnote 19: Compare the lines in Dyer's little-remembered _Ruins of Rome_.] IV.