When this sordid rust Aerugo et cura peculi cum semel imbuerit Hor. Ars 330 , etc. This love of gain, to which Horace imputes the imperfect state of the Roman poetry, hath been uniformly assigned, by the wisdom of ancient times, as the specific bane of arts and letters. Longinus and Quinctilian account, from hence, for the decay of eloquence, Galen of physic, Petronius of painting, and Pliny of the whole circle of the liberal arts. For being, as Longinus calls it, νόσημα μικροποῖον, a disease which narrows and contracts the soul, it must, of course, restrain the generous efforts and expansions of genius; cramp the free powers and energies of the mind, and render it unapt to open itself to wide views, and to the projection of great, extensive designs. It is so in its consequences. For, as one says elegantly, when the passion of avarice grows general in a country, the temples of honor are soon pulled down, and all men's sacrifices are made to fortune. and hankering after wealth has once tainted their minds, can we expect that such verses should be made as are worthy of being anointed with the oil of cedar, and kept in the well-polished cypress? To preserve their books, the ancients rubbed them with oil of cedar, and kept them in cases of cypress, because these kinds of wood were not liable to corruption.
