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Page:A Vindication of Natural Society - Burke (1756).djvu/38

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[28]

uniform of History. But there have been Periods when no less than universal Destruction to the Race of Mankind seems to have been threatened. When the Goths, the Vandals, and the Huns poured into Gaul, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Africa, carrying Destruction before them as they advanced, and leaving horrid Desarts every where behind them. Vastum ubique silentium, secreti colles; fumantia procul tecta; nemo exploratoribus obvius, is what Tacitus calls facies Victoriæ. It is always so; but was here emphatically so. From the North proceeded the Swarms of Goths, Vandals, Huns, Ostrogoths, who ran towards the South into Africa itself, which suffered as all to the North had done. About this Time, another Torrent of Barbarians, animated by the same Fury, and encouraged by the same Success, poured out of the South, and ravaged all to the North-East, and West, to the remotest Parts of Persia on one hand, and to the Banks of the Loire or further onthe