It is as if Rome, while creating and keeping the
empire she won between the days of Scipio and the days of Trajan, had
at the same time held her own with the Nineveh of Sargon and Tiglath,
the Egypt of Thothmes and Rameses, and the kingdoms of Persia and
Macedon in the red flush of their warrior-dawn. The Empire of Britain
is vaster in space, in population, in wealth, in wide variety of
possession, in a history of multiplied and manifold achievement of
every kind, than even the glorious Empire of Rome. Yet, unlike Rome,
Britain has won dominion in every clime, has carried her flag by
conquest and settlement to the uttermost ends of the earth, at the
very time that haughty and powerful rivals, in their abounding youth
or strong maturity, were eager to set bounds to her greatness, and to
tear from her what she had won afar. England has peopled continents
with her children, has swayed the destinies of teeming myriads of
alien race, has ruled ancient monarchies, and wrested from all comers
the right to the world's waste spaces, while at home she has held her
own before nations, each of military power comparable to Rome's at her
zenith.
Rome fell by attack from without only because the ills within her own
borders had grown incurable. What is true of your country, my hearers,
is true of my own; while we should be vigilant against foes from
without, yet we need never really fear them so long as we safeguard
ourselves against the enemies within our own households; and these
enemies are our own passions and follies.
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