their victories, but of the missile 170 weapons, which they were too much inclined to neglect; and the lively image of war was displayed in the daily exercise and annual reviews of the Gothic cavalry. A firm, though 175 gentle, discipline imposed the habits of modesty, obedience, and temperance; and the Goths were instructed to spare the people, to reverence the laws, to understand the duties of 180 civil society, and to disclaim the barbarous licence of judicial combat and private revenge.

Among the barbarians of the West, the victory of Theodoric had spread 185 a general alarm. But as soon as it appeared that he was satisfied with conquest and desirous of peace, terror was changed into respect, and they submitted to a powerful mediation, 190 which was uniformly employed for the best purposes of reconciling their quarrels and civilizing their manners. The ambassadors who resorted to Ravenna from the most distant coun196 tries of Europe, admired his wisdom, magnificence, and courtesy; and if he sometimes accepted either slaves or arms, white horses or strange animals, the gift of a sun-dial, a water-clock, 200 or a musician, admonished even the princes of Gaul of the superior art and industry of his Italian subjects.

His domestic alliances, a wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece, united 205 the family of Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed to maintain the harmony, or at least the 210 balance, of the great republic of the West.

It is difficult in the dark forests of Germany and Poland to pursue the emigrations of the Heruli, a fierce 215 people who disdained the use of armour, and who condemned their widows and aged parents not to sur

vive the loss of their husbands, or the decay of their strength. The king of these savage warriors solicited the 220 friendship of Theodoric, and was elevated to the rank of his son, according to the barbaric rites of a military adoption.

From the shores of the Baltic, 225 the Estians or Livonians laid their offerings of native amber at the feet of a prince whose fame had excited them to undertake an unknown and dangerous journey of fifteen hundred 230 miles.

With the country from whence the Gothic nation derived their origin, he maintained a frequent and friendly correspondence; the Italians 235 were clothed in the rich sables of Sweden; and one of its sovereigns, after a voluntary or reluctant abdication, found an hospitable retreat in the palace of Ravenna. He had 240 reigned over one of the thirteen populous tribes who cultivated a small portion of the great island or peninsula of Scandinavia, to which the vague appellation of Thule has been 245 sometimes applied. That northern region was peopled, or had been explored, as high as the sixty-eighth degree of latitude, where the natives of the polar circle enjoy and lose 250 the presence of the sun at each summer and winter solstice during an equal period of forty days. The long night of his absence or death was the mournful season of distress 255 and anxiety, till the messengers who had been sent to the mountain tops, descried the first rays of returning light, and proclaimed to the plain below the festival of his resurrection. 260

The life of Theodoric represents the rare and meritorious example of a barbarian who sheathed his sword in the pride of victory and the vigour of his age. A reign of three and 265 thirty years was consecrated to the

duties of civil government, and the hostilities in which he was sometimes involved, were speedily terminated by 270 the conduct of his lieutenants, the discipline of his troops, the arms of his allies, and even by the terror of his name. He reduced, under a strong and regular government, the unpro275 fitable countries of Rhætia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the Bavarians, to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepida on 280 the ruins of Sirmium. His prudence

could not safely intrust the bulwark of Italy to such feeble and turbulent neighbours; and his justice might claim the lands which they oppressed, either 285 as a part of his kingdom, or as the inheritance of his father.

The greatness of a servant, who was named perfidious because he was successful, awakened the jealousy 290 of the emperor Anastasius; and a war was kindled on the Dacian frontier by the protection which the Gothic king, in the vicissitude of human affairs, had granted to one of the des295 cendants of Attila. Sabinian, a general illustrious by his own and father's merit, advanced at the head of ten thousand Romans; and the provisions and arms, which filled a long train 300 of waggons, were distributed to the fiercest of the Bulgarian tribes. But, in the fields of Margus, the eastern powers were defeated by the inferior forces of the Goths and Huns; the 305 flower, and even the hope of the Roman armies was irretrievably destroyed; and such was the temperance with which Theodoric had inspired his victorious troops, that, as their 310 leader had not given the signal of pillage, the rich spoils of the enemy lay untouched at their feet.

Exasperated by this disgrace, the Byzantine court despatched two hun315 dred ships and eight thousand men to

plunder the sea-coast of Calabria and Apulia; they assaulted the ancient city of Tarentum, interrupted the trade and agriculture of an happy country, and sailed back to the 320 Hellespont, proud of their piratical victory over a people whom they still presumed to consider as their Roman brethren. Their retreat was possibly hastened by the activity of Theo- 325 doric; Italy was covered by a fleet of a thousand light vessels, which he constructed with incredible despatch; and his firm moderation was soon rewarded by a solid and hon- 330 ourable peace.

He maintained with a powerful hand the balance of the West, till it was at length overthrown by the ambition of Clovis; and although 335 unable to assist his rash and unfortunate kinsman, the king of the Visigoths, he saved the remains of his family and people, and checked the Franks in the midst of their 340 victorious career. I am not desirous to prolong or repeat this narrative of military events, the least interesting of the reign of Theodoric; and shall be content to add that the Alemanni 345 were protected, that an inroad of the Burgundians was severely chastised, and that the conquest of Arles and Marseilles opened a free communication with the Visigoths, who 350 revered him both as their national protector, and as the guardian of his grandchild, the infant son of Alaric.

Under this respectable character, 355 the king of Italy restored the pretorian prefecture of the Gauls, reformed some abuses in the civil government of Spain, and accepted the annual tribute and apparent sub- 360 mission of its military governor, who wisely refused to trust his person in the palace of Ravenna. The Gothic sovereignty was established from Si

365 cily to the Danube, from Sirmium or Belgrade to the Atlantic Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the western 370 empire.

...

In the seventh year of his peaceful reign (500), Theodoric visited the old capital of the world; the senate and people advanced in solemn pro375 cession to salute a second Trajan, a new Valentinian; and he nobly supported that character by the assurance of a just and legal government, in a discourse which he was 380 not afraid to pronounce in public, and to inscribe on a tablet of brass. Rome, in this august ceremony, shot a last ray of declining glory; and a saint, the spectator of this pompous 385 scene, could only hope, in his pious fancy, that it was excelled by the celestial splendour of the New Jerusalem.

During a residence of six months, 390 the fame, the person, and the courteous demeanour of the Gothic king excited the admiration of the Romans, and he contemplated, with equal curiosity and surprise, the monuments 395 that remained of their ancient greatness. He imprinted the footsteps of a conqueror on the Capitoline hill, and frankly confessed that each day he viewed with fresh wonder the 400 forum of Trajan and his lofty column. The theatre of Pompey appeared, even in its decay, as a huge mountain artificially hollowed and polished, and adorned by human in405 dustry; and he vaguely computed that a river of gold must have been drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre of Titus. From the mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and 410 copious stream was diffused into every part of the city; among these the Claudian water, which arose at the distance of thirty-eight miles in

Herrig-Forster, British Authors.

The Gothic kings, so injuriously accused of the ruin of antiquity, were anxious to preserve the monuments of the nation whom they had subdued. The royal edicts were 430 framed to prevent the abuses, the neglect, or the depredations of the citizens themselves; and a professed architect, the annual sum of two hundred pounds of gold, twenty-five 435 thousand tiles, and the receipt of customs from the Lucrine port, were assigned for the ordinary repairs of the walls and public edifices. A similar care was extended to the 440 statues of metal or marble of men or animals. The spirit of the horses, which have given a modern name to the Quirinal, was applauded by the barbarians; the brazen elephants 445 of the Via sacra were diligently restored; the famous heifer of Myron deceived the cattle, as they were driven through the forum of peace; and an officer was created to pro- 450 tect those works of art, which Theodoric considered as the noblest ornament of his kingdom.

After the example of the last emperors, Theodoric preferred the 455 residence of Ravenna, where he cultivated an orchard with his own hands. As often as the peace of his kingdom was threatened (for it was never invaded) by the barbarians, 460 he removed his court to Verona on the northern frontier, and the image

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of his palace, still extant, on a coin, represents the oldest and most authen465 tic model of Gothic architecture. These two capitals, as well as Pavia, Spoleto, Naples, and the rest of the Italian cities, acquired under his reign the useful or splendid decorations of 470 churches, aqueducts, baths, porticoes, and palaces. But the happiness of the subject was more truly conspicuous in the busy scene of labour and luxury, in the rapid increase and 475 bold enjoyment of national wealth.

From the shades of Tibur and Præneste, the Roman senators still retired in the winter-season to the warm sun and salubrious springs of 480 Baiæ; and their villas, which advanced on solid moles into the bay of Naples, commanded the various prospect of the sky, the earth, and the water. On the eastern side of 485 the Hadriatic, a new Campania was formed in the fair and fruitful province of Istria, which communicated with the palace of Ravenna by an easy navigation of one hundred miles. 490 The rich productions of Lucania and the adjacent provinces were exchanged at the Marcilian fountain, in a populous fair, annually dedicated to trade, intemperance, and superstition. 495 In the solitude of Comum, which had once been animated by the mild genius of Pliny, a transparent basin, above sixty miles in length, still reflected the rural seats which en500 compassed the margin of the Larian lake; and the gradual ascent of the hills was covered by a triple plan

tation of olives, of vines, and of chestnut-trees.

Agriculture revived under the 505 shadow of peace, and the number of husbandmen was multiplied by the redemption of captives. The ironmines of Dalmatia, a gold-mine in Bruttium, were Bruttium, were carefully explored, 510 and the Pomptine marshes, as well as those of Spoleto, were drained and cultivated by private undertakers, whose distant reward must depend on the continuance of the public 515 prosperity. Whenever the seasons were less propitious, the doubtful precautions of forming magazines of corn, fixing the price, and prohibiting the exportation, attested at least 520 the benevolence of the state; but such was the extraordinary plenty which an industrious people produced from a grateful soil, that a gallon of wine was sometimes sold in Italy 525 for less than three farthings, and a quarter of wheat at about five shillings and sixpence.

A country possessed of so many valuable objects of exchange soon 530 attracted the merchants of the world, whose beneficial traffic was encouraged and protected by the liberal spirit of Theodoric. The free intercourse of the provinces by land and 535 water was restored and extended; the city-gates were never shut either by day or by night; and the common saying that a purse of gold might be safely left in the fields, 540 was expressive of the conscious security of the inhabitants.

EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797) was the

son of a Dublin attorney. He studied at Dublin and London, but soon gave up his legal pursuits, and took to literary work. Acting as private secretary to William Gerard Hamilton (1759-1764) and after

wards to the Marquis of Rockingham, then Prime Minister of England, he became engaged in politics, and so, in 1765, entered the House of Commons, where for 29 years he held a foremost place in the Whig party. More and more alienated from the Whigs