as he thought no doubt, a faithful meffenger, into the Hebrides, for the purpose of learning his future destiny from a witch or angekok refiding there, who fold favourable winds and told fortunes. Her anfwer to the man who came for confultation, was fimply this 'Tis you will kill Natholocus. The meffenger, who had not fuch a thought before, now entertained it; and fearing to relate the dangerous prediction, refolved rather to accomplish it, preventing his master's anger by his death-whilst Oftrogotha, another tributary of the Romans, drove all the Gepida before him on the continent, chased many Vandals from their ancient feats, and fo increased his wide and wild domain, foon to be called after his name their founder; that all the northern diftricts of the empire felt juftly fearful of thefe gathering ftorms. Nor was the caft more quiet: Agathias, whofe Perfian history serves as a fupplement to the works of Procopius, tells us the acts of Sapor, and his battles oft repeated with young Gordian, a virtuous, literary, and martial character, who folemnly opened the temple of Janus, and wedding the daughter of his preceptor Mifitheus, conducted himfelf with wisdom and propriety, till an Arabian chief, skilled in the poisoning arts, drugged the unhappy tutor's poffet; little doubting but that a boy of those years, let alone, would foon commit fome juvenile exceffes, that might be urged to countenance rebellion. Gordian however did not difgrace his family, all three who bore the name were scholars and foldiers, magnificent in peace, and eminently fearless in war. So that Philip the Arab was constrained to excite the guards by donatives, to murder a young man who deferved better fate; and coming to the throne on his decease, kept it a while against various pretenders fet in oppofition by the fenate, who faw with no delight a Christian prince invested with royal robes, and placed in the first fituation of the ftate. Eufebius fays, the infant church even then displayed her power, denying entrance to their profelyte, though they exifted but by his protection, till he had made a public penance for his fins. As Scaliger however doubts this fact, we must wait other evidence. evidence. Truth is, the captain of a band of robbers, whofe name denotes merely the lover of a horfe, did fmall credit to any faith, and might poffibly have been mistaken for a profeffor of ours, if, having been born an Ishmaelite, he had retained fome traditionary belief in the Old Teftament-for Pagans were perpetually confounding our Christian creed with the Mofaic difpenfation. I guess not indeed, what could have deceived Eufebius. His celebration of the fecular plays, when in the general gaiety and riot Pompey's fine theatre was burned to ground, prove him no very fcrupulous believer; fince at thofe games (when the grave herald's voice called the whole town together, crying, Come fee the fports which no man now alive ever did or ever shall fee more) the Emperor himself acted as pontiff, fprinkling the victim's head with falt and wine—a ceremony no Chriftian convert would have fubmitted to, as for the non-performance of fimilar rites numberless men were martyr'd every day. At thefe At thefe particular plays, exhibited once every hundred years, fæpe facias! anfwering to the oriental compliment of O King, live for ever! was loudly repeated to the prefiding prince, from the day when Vitellius, then an adulator in his court, flattered lethargic Claudius with the expreffion-fince when it paffed into a common form.* But Philip's reign lafted five years only; in which time, having taken from poets fome old privileges, on account of their obfcenity, and built a town confining upon his native country, which still retains the name Phillipopolis or Filliba revolting Decius called him to difpute the empire near Verona, where the Arab, by forced marches, brought army, which on arrival fled treacheroufly to the newer favourite, bearing with them their general's head upon a pike, the better to secure pardon from the conqueror, who lived not indeed to enter his capital, though by his order the hottest perfecution ever feen was begun there, infomuch that Nicephorus fays the crowd of martyrs grew fo truly immense, that fand on the fea-shore might as easily have been numbered. his is the Turks call it Sæpe facias means do it often: prefide many times over this amufement. St. St. Lawrence's fuperior torments and conftancy give him peculiar claim for distinction; the gridiron's form on which he fuffered, is at this day perpetuated in the Efcurial palace at Madrid. Meanwhile the Roman empire paffed fwiftly through the hands of the two Decii, Prifcus, Valens, Gallus and Volufian--who feemed vying with each other in cruelty towards our brethren, on whofe obftinate denial of their gods and goddeffes, was now charged all the mifery of Rome-war, famine, peftilence, and dread of utter ruin from the barbarous nations, vainly bought off by Gallus with difgraceful gifts; and still returning fresh to the attack, armed with new powers, and eager for new plunder. Civil commotions too fhook the metropolis, which, in the bosom of voluptuous folly, was enduring all the horrors of a contest caused by Emilianus's revolt. It was not then that the exhaufted ftate required copious bleeding: Montefquieu fays how fuch internal broils ftrengthen the nerves of government, and tells how people accustomed to dispute at home, become forfooth invincible abroad. This doctrine men are preaching while I write; but the precept is dangerous and fallacious: Montefquicu meant a young ftate, not an old one. Our first King James (I have read) was feized with an ague in the clofe of life; and feeling low-fpirited at death's approach, fome courtiers reminded him of a proverb used in England; and, Oh! said they, your Majesty must recollect, that an ague in fpring is phyfic for a king. --Aye, but the adage meant a young king, replied the expiring monarch. The event in both thefe cafes is the fame Whilft one half of the Roman fubjects, in all parts of the empire, were diligently cutting the throats of the other half-many falling upon religious accounts-and those who cared not about piety were contending for power; their helplefs emperor, the once tyrannic Valerian, ferved the Perfian prince Sapores for a footftool, whence every day he mounted his horfe: till, tired with afferting this uncontested privilege, he flayed the wretched prifoner yet alive, and strewing with falt, revenged unconsciously on his pampered body, the agonies he he had delighted to inflict on Chriftians. The Roman empire next faw itself split and ruled by thirty tyrants, who could not however protect the limits of dominion, while cach feparate general fought for himself, not for his undone country-and the bold Oftrogoths fpoiled all Bithynia, loading themfelves with treafures of which they could not comprehend the value-nor feemed to know, while they were wafting Macedonia, that in that country had been born the fovereign of the world. Gallienus meantime, a fenfual prince, held the flight reins of government at home, and feemed (whilft flavery from mere habit miniftered to his pleasures) fo little difturbed by what had chanced abroad, that he gave himfelf wholly up to gay voluptuousness, making, as Shakespear fays, his lofs his fport; and fenfelefsly delighting to hear his name recorded with that of Commodus, his model. Let him not lofe his well-acquired fame; 'tis to the skill of Gallicnus that we owe the first good plan of a fine hot-house, ice-house, and confervatory* but the rough Goths hindered its execution. And now, difgufted with the fight and hearing of fuch ill-timed, fuch furfeiting abfurdity; which, not confined to courts or palaces, fpread among all the ranks of men at Rome-Paul, the first hermit on record, retired; fled from fociety of human kind, and living in a defert upon herbs and fruits, gave rife to the idea of obtaining favour from God, by voluntary exile from the company of those who debased their nature, and contradicted their reason; refufing the offered mercies of a Redeemer too, and destroying the effects, so far as in them lay, of his so great falvation. On this example afterwards were founded monaftic orders-within our own remembrance nearly innumerable; and subject, for that cause and many others, to inconceivable abufes. Meanwhile the hierarchy held * I have read fomewhere, that Alexander had the fecret of cooling his liquors by ice, while he was in India, though Pliny speaks of it as new in Nero's time, and fays that emperor boiled water firft, that it might freeze the eafier. If Alexander was acquainted with ice, what could the story mean of the spring Nicotris, whose waters were fo cold they burft all veffels but a mule's hoof??? firm firm within the church, and copes and holy vestments now adorned it; though various herefies difgraced thefe carly times of Chriftianity, when tares were fown which yet perplex the field. An enemy, our Saviour told us, was the planter; he faid they fhould grow up along with the good corn, and who knows but that the harvest may be hard at hand. But we're engaged not to anticipate, our business is with Retrospection; nor muft lofe fight of the vast Gothic irruptions which at the hour we treat of, more frequent and in fuller tides, rolled o'er the habitable globe, amazing all, but chiefly overwhelming Peloponæfus and its contiguous claffic countries. Athens and Argo; Sparta, Thebes, Dodona; theatre of glory, virtue, valour, elegance: confecrated fcenes! where Plato taught, where Sappho fung; where Phidias gave to their resemblances in marble fo warm an animation, fo difcriminating a character, they hoped from him a second immortality. But from this flood of barbarifm, far worse than that which their Deucalion and Pyrrha were fabled to furvive-not even flones escaped. The temple of Ephefus, one of the feven wonders of the world, was burned in this confufion; and by a pillar which may be feen at Pifa yet, its general merit may in fome measure be estimated. But when the unfeeling north poured forth her wafte inhabitants, and bid them roam for prey, regardless of the ruin left behind: onward they prefs'd in countless multitudes, unconfcious fhoals; as when old Ocean half acquires folidity from life that ftirs within; bringing, at stated times, innumerable fish down from the fertile Baltic, to be loft in that сараcious aggregate of waters that clafp around the fouthern continent-fo burst thefe Goths and Vandals on mankind, fparing no place, no fex, no age, and no opinion. The dragon then indeed difgorged a flood out of his mouth to deftroy the woman, well reprefenting our Chrif tian church, but the earth helped the woman, as St. John faw in his Apocalypfe; and that religion meant to be fwept away, efcaped the violence; ftrengthening in fpite of oft repeated blows, profpering in fpite of oft repeated plunder. Councils had long been held, and fome few years before, under the papacy |