and had amassed together a quantity of dry wood near the entrances. The fire is lighted, and instantly gains the platform. From the bottom of the walls, Titus beholds this conflagration, and numbers of his own men surrounded by the flames. In vain he endeavours to succour them. His firmness yields to this spectacle. A flood of tears bespeaks his pity and grief. Some of these unfortunate men pierce themselves with their own swords, others throw themselves headlong from the galleries, not one escapes.

Titus, at length, renouncing those compassionate efforts which only sacrificed the lives of his own men, orders the fort to be demolished, and the other porticos to be burnt, without sparing any but the interior of the temple; they planted the machines against the external wall, but they battered it uselessly during six days; it was necessary to have recourse to scalade; then it was that the most sanguinary assaults were given; inclosed between walls of immense height, and the blazing ruins of the porticos, it was scarcely possible for the combatants to see through the whirlwinds of smoke and dust; the intermixture of fighting Jews and Romans, the cries of the dying, the shouts of the victors, prevented the commands of the officers from being heard. False prophets had announced in Sion that the glory of the Lord was about to be manifested, and the people, always credulous, rushed in crowds to the temple, which swelled the tumult and the carnage; in this disorder, a soldier, contrary to the express order of Titus, threw a firebrand into one of the windows of the temple,

that set fire to the galleries, whence the flames spread throughout the whole edifice.

The Jews, at this sight, uttered a mournful cry of horror and despair, and Titus, almost as afflicted as themselves, commands the progress of the conflagration to be stopped; but in vain he commands, his voice is no longer heard; the eager desire of vengeance, and the cupidity of the soldiers, excited by the view of gold and riches glittering on every side, impelled them to pillage and massacre. Thus perished in the flames, a temple, for ages universally venerated, in the midst of two armies who had fought to save it from that fate. Titus, admiring the wonderful strength of the ramparts of Sion, exclaimed, "the God of the Jews has himself combatted against them; to him we owe the victory."

JULIAN.

JULIAN, who, besides the emperor Constantius, alone survived of all the numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus, became an object of the suspicion and jealousy of the monarch. After seven months confinement, his life was preserved by the generous friendship and powerful intercession of the empress Eusebia; Athens was assigned by the emperor as the place of honourable exile. Julian, who had displayed from early youth a propensity for the learning, manners, and religion of the Greeks, obeyed the mandate with pleasure; and in the schools of Athens established that prepossession in favour of his virtues and

talents, which was soon diffused over the Roman world. Constantius, finding that his single strength was unequal to the care of his extensive dominions, he was influenced by the advice of Eusebia, to give Julian his sister Helena in marriage, and to appoint him, with the title of Cesar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. Upon his arrival at Milan, Julian was received by the empress with the tenderness of a sister; Constantius from his lofty tribunal, announced to the troops under arms, his intention of rewarding with the purple the virtues of Julian, who on that day entered the twenty-fifth year of his age. The troops, as a token of applause, clashed their shields against their knees, while the officers with decent reserve, expressed their sense of the merits of the representative of Constantius. When Julian, as an unexperienced youth, entered upon the government of Gaul, that country was in a wretched state, overrun and wasted by various German tribes. The education of Julian had rendered him more conversant with books than arms; but the habits of temperance recommended in the schools, were admirably suited to the discipline of a camp; and the eloquence he had practised, might excite or assuage the passions of an armed multitude. In his march through the Gallic provinces, Julian seized the earliest opportunity of displaying his valour, but the enterprizes of his first campaign served less to deliver the oppressed country than to signalize his own courage; and no sooner was he retired into winter quarters, than he was besieged by a host of Germans. The intrepidity of the prince compen

sated for the deficiencies of the place and garrison, and at the end of thirty days the barbarians were compelled to retire. After having vanquished the Allemanni, and taken their king prisoner, he passed the Rhine, and returned followed by twenty thousand captives, whom he had rescued from the chains of the Germans; the fruit of many victories over those fierce foes. As soon as his valour and conduct had secured an interval of peace, Julian applied himself to repair the cities of Gaul, and to restore their fortifications; while, by large importations of corn from Britain, he provided for the subsistence of the inhabitants and garrisons. The leisure of his winter quarters was devoted to the offices of civil government. As far as his influence extended, he pitied and alleviated the distresses of the people; and though he could not revive the martial spirit of the Romans, nor introduce the arts of industry among their savage enemies, yet the victories of the Cesar suspended for a short time the inroads of the barbarians, and delayed the ruin of the western world.

While the Romans languished under tyranny, the praise of Julian was repeated in every part of the empire. The Germans dreaded the Cesar whose valour they had experienced; the soldiers extolled the leader beneath whose banners they had conquered; the grateful inhabitants of the provinces acknowledged their deliverance by him from the ravages of the enemy; but Constantius dreaded the virtues he ought to have imitated, and his fawning favourites decried the disposition of a prince indifferent to pleasure and

averse from luxury. The jealousy of the emperor was awakened, and quickly manifested itself. The tranquillity of Gaul, and the alarming state of the eastern frontier, afforded a specious pretext for withdrawing the veteran legions from the former, and of thus disarming the Cesar, who was unjustly suspected. The mandate for this purpose was issued, and Julian well knew that his compliance with the order would prove the destruction of himself, and of the people he governed; while his refusal would be regarded as an act of rebellion, and a declaration of war; yet the unappeasable suspicion of Constantius, and the peremptory nature of the command, left room neither for apology, nor even for candid interpretation. The struggle in the mind of Julian was long and severe, but at length his indignant feelings gave way to the submissive duties of the subject, and he gave orders for carrying into execution the commands of the emperor; but the soldiers who were to be thus separated from their beloved chief, could not conceal their discontent. Their murmurs were soon communicated from tent to tent. At the hour of midnight the impatient multitude rushed into the suburbs, encompassed the palace, and pronounced the irrevocable words, Julian Augustus. The prince endeavoured to withdraw himself from their tumultuary attachment; but at the dawn of day they seized his person with respectful violence, placed him on the tribunal, and with loud shouts proclaimed him emperor. Till the third hour of the day, the inflexible Cesar sustained their prayers, their reproaches, their menaces; but he was told that