Daily National Intelligencer

The proneness to depreciate our own times and to undervalue our contemporaries, has been frequently remarked. We are more interested in the history of our ancestors, and even of the ancients, than in the political events which pass before our eyes. Those who devote themselves to classical studies, are remarkable for this ignorance of the present, which is ill supplied by a knowledge of the past. It is one of these probably who penned the following paragraph, which has widely circulated in our newspapers, evidently under the idea of its affording a strong contrast to the manners of our day:

TIMES LONG PAST.—The clothes of the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar were seldom other than such as the Empress Livia, or his sister Octavia, had spun for him. Cato rode upon a single horse, without attendance, and his baggage behind him. Aristides, Valerius, Publicola, and several other great names, who had the management of the public treasures of Republican Greece and Rome, did not leave enough to bury them when they died.

But these are ancient examples—not to be adduced for imitation now-a-days. Augustus Caesar might have taken a pride in wearing clothes which his wife had spun for him. It is certain that of those who, by the suffrages of the people have successively held the first station in our government, and of whom ostentation might be most expected as first among their peers, several of them have been in the habit of wearing cloth of domestic fabric; the raw material of which was even produced on their farms. We have no doubt but General Washington did so, it being the custom of his country; and we know that others did. This, therefore, is applicable to the present day.

Cato rode upon a single horse. We shall not pun on this expression, but receive it in its intended sense. All our Presidents, in succession, have pursued this practice, sometimes attended by a servant, it is true, but, even whilst in office, frequently unattended.

Of those who have had the management of the Treasury of the nation, who has died rich? Did that trust enrich Hamilton or Dallas? Their bereaved families could tell. If enough was left to bury them, it was because they remained too short a time in the public service for the entire dilapidation of their private resources.

It is idle to direct our attention to Grecian and Roman History for examples worthy of imitation; since the government of this country, in all its Departments, and the habits and manners of those who administer it, are characterized by a simplicity of which no example is afforded by history in a nation as highly cultivated. In other countries, education and improvement in the arts have introduced parade and splendour into the government. It is here otherwise. All history may be challenged to exhibit a parallel, from the most popular democracy to the most despotic tyranny, of the absence of show, or parade, about the persons or families of those who preside over the affairs of this nation. As an instance of it, no case can be cited, in which, except during war, the President has been attended by an armed man, either at his residence or on his journeys through the country, or in which a single sentry has stood at his door, though the whole military force of the nation is at his disposal.