Show prophets of doom seen in all ages wrote pessimistically of the tendency of times london taking ls iss IP je witt tl ti ose who see the world orld as its 1 r cee ceel I 1 n ng in a continuous danward d anward dr d eLtiOn and with droplets prop pro ets of doom in general a correspondent of the I 1 or I 1 n rimes sends to that paper an antt ant loloy of pessimism compiled by 1 itself it commences I 1 e says w th an early babylonian tablet id la benting the growth of Irrell glon ot of d are i ird for li la i an I 1 disrespect for parents it proceeds inexorably through ii i papyri and the inspired lamentations of tl tt e hebrew proal ets through the u eun elan choly forebodings of greek writers to to the ampler records of the great I 1 atin authors of the augustan age livy who d ed three years after ku u gustus observes in the preface to I 1 s first boob book that to most readers the oear earliest liest origins and the period imme succeeding vern tl em will give little pleasure leasure tor for they will be in haste 1 to reach these modern times in which ithe the might of a people wa ellch ich has long teen very powerful Is working its own undoing tacitus laments tacitus de a few years later was loud in his denunciation of the characteristic vices of the age the gravest of historians in each success sues ae lave 1 ave spoken of their on time and of the in tried ate fu fir lure ture in terms of almost enrel eved gloom clat claiman d an aloi e vis wis optimistic in I 1 Is pr pi eslee of tie tl e f fut ut ire great i ess of I 1 me pe de cot cois 9 stil ill 1 I 0 she alone who has received the con evered into her bosom and I 1 II 11 I 1 e a mother not an empress pro the I 1 imin im in r ce with nith a corn com mon name simmonne s hinmon ng alose tl ose whom ale tas las defeated to shale ler 1 er citi zensi lp p and drawing together distant races with mith bonis bon Is of affection there will ill ne never er I 1 te e a lin it to the em pire of rome atlin five years the jealous hono rius had murdered stil cho who alone malt m gl t hive h ive saved rome from de st ruction a few moi later at the hands of alaric 1 he anglo saxon chronicles the graffiti of despairing men scratched on the vails malls of the church tower of in Hertford shire at the time of the black death the passionate out bursts of piers plowman the meas ared wisdom of bacon and able passages in shakespeare spenser and raleigh culminating in milton s exuberant prose all alike show how keenly good men in every age are aware of how many are the perils through which we have to go just state of M nd the correspondent concludes passing over sir william petty in 1685 and rev john brown and his contemporaries I 1 have space only to refer to sir robert giffels evidence before the royal Commis commission pon on trade depression in 1886 almost every witness testified to the impending col lapse or rapid decay of england none could see anything but disaster ahead sir robert giffen alone stood firm he said sald depression was to him a state ot of mind of those in business the result very often of too much talk and too little hard work it would pass it did pass all the middle aged witnesses proved wrong by 1895 we had bad risen to fresh heights which we have long ago overtopped over topped the age of gold Is a with us provided free in illative remains to the individual |