preserva

man archi

primitive Faith. No majesty of expression, no loveliness of form, no magic of conception, no exquisiteness of taste, no delicacy of execution could in the firm minds of the early Christians atone for the impurity of the idols: they were without excuse.-Scarcely ever has there been an unmutilated statue of a Heathen deity excavated within the Roman territory. The effigies are ruined in the ruins. The fourteen fragments of Parian marble dug up in the baths of Nero, and now composing the Venus, the glory of the Medici, testify equally to the uncompromising zeal inculcated by the apostolic age, and the skill of the restoring artist, fostered by the patronage of those who, in the golden age of revival, derided the simplicity of the Apostles.

Nevertheless, the Romans clung to the memorials inherited from their forefathers: the Basilica repeated the forms of the Imperial structures: their architecture, however rudely, gave an outward testimony of the national sentiment. Traditional Such buildings declare that they are the protion of Ro- ductions of a people, who, fallen from their Roeur high estate, repelled the intrusion of a stranger. Mediæval Rome might be viewed as the palace of a decayed but noble family, retaining the tokens and symbols of ancestry, contrasting with naked walls and earthen floor. Of all the cities in Western Christendom, Rome was the only one in which Gothic architecture never obtained

tecture in

ing the

dark

dur

ages.

naturalization: that mystic and imaginative creation, so inseparably allied in popular opinion with mediæval Catholicism, was excluded from the Capital of the Christian world.

Thus also the palace of Crescentius, inhabited generations afterwards by Rienzi, strangely compacted of ancient fragments, and standing desolate upon the shores of the Tiber, still displays the anxiety which the "Brutus of the revived Republic" felt to shew that he dwelt as a Roman. His medals tell far more than the pages of history. Crescentius usurped the state and insignia of the Empire.-In like manner, with national, if not religious consistency, the national feeling overcoming the religious sentiment, the ancient ensigns, consecrated almost as the tutelary deities of the Legions, the Wolf, the Minotaur, the Dragon, the Eagle, came forth from the Capitol, and inaugurated the Teutonic successors of the Cæsars.

of the

Like the other Italian Republics, municipal Obscurity Rome sustained incessant changes in her com- municipal munal organization; but dull darkness shrouds mediaval her rude, convulsive, and turbulent destinies.

How fortunate was fair Florence in her Chroniclers their gifts, their talents, their industry, their knowledge: the tender affection of Malespini; the earnest pathos of Dino Compagni; the graphic inspiration of Villani, and the rich fund of information which renders him the second in

history of

Rome.

order of the great European Historians of the mediæval period-England gave the first, Matthew Paris the Monk of Saint Alban's; and Flanders in her Froissart, the third-Rome had none like these amongst her sons. Uncouth diaries, meagre annalists, scattered and fragmentary muniments are the failing and imperfect sources of Rome's local and peculiar history. Few, indeed, comparatively, of the renowned names which have illustrated Italy, imperial Italy, mediæval Italy, or modern Italy, whether in literature, or poetry, or science, or arts, or arms, can really be assigned to that City which has given the intellectual impulse to the civilized world.

Antiquaries have painfully retrieved some indications of Rome's mediæval magistracy. Senators, Consuls, Patricians, glance and retreat before us. The authority of the municipal rulers was continually disturbed by popular dissensions, and disgraced as well as enfeebled by the baseness, levity, avarice and venality which rendered the people-the dregs of the dregs of Romulus-the Moral pre- very proverb and bye-word of the nations. Neverof the City theless, mean and mendicant as Rome had be

eminence

of Rome

her poverty

despite of come, the honour of opinion was continued to and degra- her; men bowed before the Community they de

dation.

spised, just as a Tiberius or a Caligula, brutalized by vice, was still an Emperor. Rome still enjoyed a preeminence which none could contest. The brazen Wolf dwelt in the Capitol, and the four

letters, which, by an almost magic influence, convey the concrete idea of Rome's Empire, decked her monuments. Tattered and sordid and faded was her Imperial robe, still she triumphed -the Queen of Cities.

Unworthy of her trust, her trust was continued to her; and in the highest of her functions Rome retained her authority. Whether sincere or venal, whether prompted by veneration or suggested by faction, the Roman Municipality presented the Pontiff to the Primatial See of Christendom. That transcendent function, after many conflicts and contests and changes, became finally vested in the Cardinal hierarchy of the Roman Diocese; yet, whilst the popular concurrence subsisted, the postulation was the legal right of the Roman Commonwealth; nor did the demerits of the Patrons contaminate the Pontiff, unless he personally participated in them, or any how detract from his canonical authority as the consecrated successor of the Apostle. The foulnesses of the soil do not infect the fruit of the tree, which may ripen, sweet and nourishing, out of the impure earth by which the roots are surrounded.

ters into

the history of all the

§ 5. In physical Geography, the features of Charlemagne's each district must be united to the rivers and history enmountain ranges beyond the square of the map. You must over-pass frontiers and artificial limits. European Neither can the history of any particular State comprehended in the European Commonwealth

States.

The ideal Charlemagne.

be studied profitably or properly, unless in connexion with the universal history of Western Christendom. Hence the great difficulty of treating Modern History. The utmost expansion given to the history of any particular State or Nation must necessarily fail to include the general information, needful as the complement of the specialty. Perhaps there are few branches of human knowledge concerning which it may be so truly said, that the Learner must be his own Teacher: and many portions of history, apparently the most familiar, offer the greatest difficulty when you attempt to grapple with them. Such is the history of Charlemagne. Every State which arose within the compass of his direct dominion has been shaped through his influence, however diversely, nay contradictorily, that influence may have been modified; whilst his moral dominion extended far beyond the geographical boundaries of his Empire. It was not arrested by Eyder on the North or Ebro on the South, nor even by the waves of the British Channel. The AngloSaxon Empire ran parallel with the Carlovingian Empire until the Norman Conquest, that junction which completely let in all the principles appropriated by the Northmen, when they themselves accepted the doctrines and policy proffered by the Institutions of Roman France.

It seems Charlemagne's fate that he should always be in danger, of shading into a mythic