gar, and he readily forgave their tendency to promote the reign of pricfthood and fuperftition. The bishops of Italy and the adjacent idlands acknowledged the Roman pontiff as their special metropolitan. Even the existence, the union, or the tranflation of epifcopal feats, was decided by his abfolute difcretion and his fuccefsful inroads into the provinces of Greece, of Spain, and of Gaul, might countenance the more lofty pretenfions of fucceeding popes. He interpofed to prevent the abufes of popular elections; his jealous care maintained the purity of faith and difcipline, and the apoftolic fhepherd affidu oufly watched over the faith and difcipline of the fubordinate paftors. Under his reign, the Arians of Italy and Spain were reconciled to the Catholic church, and the conqueft of Britain reflects lefs glory on the name of Cæfar than on that of Gregory I. Inftead of fix legions, forty nionks were embarked for that diftant ifland, and the pontiff lamented the auftere duties which forbade him to partake the perils of their fpiritual warfare. In lefs than two years he could announce to the archbishop of Alexandria, that they had baptifed the king of Kent with ten thousand of his Anglo-Saxons, and that the Roman miffionaries, like thofe of the primitive church, were armed only with fpiritual and fupernatural powers. The credulity or the prudence of Gregory was always difpofed to confirm the truths of religion by the evidence of ghosts, miracles, and refurrections; and pofterity has paid to his memory the fame tribute, which he freely granted to the virtue of his own or the preceding generation. The coeleftial honours have been liberally be ftowed by the authority of the popes, but Gregory is the laft of

their own order whom they have prefumed to inferibe in the calendar of faints.

"Their temporal power infenfibly arofe from the calamities of the times: and the Roman bishops who have deluged Europe and Asia with blood, were compelled to reign as the minifters of charity and peace. I. The church of Rome, as it has been formerly obferved, was endow ed with ample poffeffions in Italy, Sicily, and the more diftant provinces; and her agents, who were commonly fubdeacons, had acquir ed a civil, and even criminal, jurifdiction over their tenants and hufbandmen. The fucceffor of St. Peter administered his patrimony with the temper of a vigilant and moderate landlord; and the epiftles of Gregory are filled with falutary inftructions to abftain from doubtful or vexatious law-fuits; to pre. ferve the integrity of weights and measures; to grant every reafonable delay, and to reduce the capitation of the flaves of the glebe, who purchafed the right of marriage by the payment of an arbitrary fine. The rent or the produce of thefe eftates was transported to the mouth of the Tyber, at the risk and expence of the pope: in the use of wealth, he acted like a faithful steward of the church and the poor, and liberally applied to their wants, the inexhaustible refources of abftinence and order. The voluminous account of his receipts and difbursements was kept above three hundred years in the Lateran, as the model of Chriftian economy. On the four great festivals, he divided their quarterly allowance to the clergy, to his domeftics, to the monafteries, the churches, the places of burial, the alms-houses, and the hofpitals of Rome, and the reft of the diocefe. On the firft

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leto, encouraged the Italians to guard their cities and altars; and condefcended, in the crifis of danger, to name the tribunes, and to direct the operations of the provincial troops. But the martial spirit of the pope was checked by the fcruples of humanity and religion: the impofition of tribute, though it was employed in the Italian war, he freely condemned as odious and oppreffive; whilft he protected a gainft the imperial edicts, the pious cowardice of the foldiers who de ferted a military for a monaftic life. If we may credit his own declarations, it would have been eafy for Gregory to exterminate the Lombards by their domeftic factions, without leaving a king, a duke, or a count, to fave that unfortunate nation from the vengeance of their foes. As a Chriftian bishop, he preferred the falutary offices of peace; his mediation appeased the tumult of arms; but he was too confcious of the arts of the Greeks, and the paffions of the Lombards, to engage his facred promife for the obfervance of the truce. Difappointed in the hope of a general and lafting treaty, he prefumed to fave his country without the confent of the emperor or the exarch. The fword of the enemy was fufpended over Rome; it was averted by the mild eloquence and feafonable gifts of the pontiff, who commanded the refpect of heretics and Barbarians. The merits of Gregory were treated by the Byzantine court with reproach and infult; but in the attachment of a grateful people, he found the pureft reward of a citizen, and the beft right of a fovereign."

day of every month, he diftributed to the poor, according to the feafon, their ftated portion of corn, wine, cheefe, vegetables, oil, fifh, freth provifions, clothes, and money; and his treasurers were continually fummoned to fatisfy, in his name, the extraordinary demands of indigence and merit. The inftant diftrefs of the fick and helpless, of strangers and pilgrims, was relieved by the bounty of each day, and of every hour; nor would the pontiff indulge himfelf in a frugal repaft, ill he had fent the difhes from his own table to fome objects deferving of his compaffion. The mifery of the times had reduced the nobles and matrons of Rome to accept, without a blush, the benevolence of the church three thousand virgins received their food and raiment from the hand of their benefactor; and many bishops of Italy efcaped from the Barbarians to the hofpitable threshold of the Vatican. Gregory might justly be ftyled the father of his country; and fuch was the extreme fenfibility of his confcience, that, for the death of a beggar who had perished in the streets, he interdicted himself during feveral days from the exercife of the facerdotal functions. II. The misfortunes of Rome involved the apoftolical paftor in the business of peace and war; and it might be doubtful to himself, whether piety or ambition prompted him to fupply the place of his abfent fovereign. Gregory awakened the emperor from a long flumber, expofed the guilt or incapacity of the exarch and his inferior minifters, comptained that the veterans were withdrawn from Rome for the defence of Spo

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HE appellation of great has been often bestowed and fometimes deferved, but Charlemagne is the only prince in whofe favour the title has been indiffolubly blended with the name. That name, with the addition of faint, is inferted in the Roman calendar; and the faint, by a rare felicity, is crowned with the praises of the hiftorians and philofophers of an enlightened age. His real merit is doubtless enhanced by the barbarifm of the nation and the times from which he emerged: but the apparent magnitude of an object is likewife enlarged by an unequal comparifon; and the ruins of Palmyra derive a cafual fplendor from the nakedness of the furrounding defert. Without injuftice to his fame, I may difcern fome blemishes in the fanctity and greatness of the restorer of the Western empire. Of his moral virtues, chastity is not the moft confpicuous but the public happinefs could not be materially injured by his nine wives or concubines, the various indulgence of meaner or more transient amours, the multitude of his baftards whom he beftowed on the church, and the long celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, whom the father was fufpected of loving with too fond a paffion. I fhall be fcarcely permitted to accufe the ambition of a conqueror; but in a day of equal retribution, the fans of his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of Aquitain, aud the four thoufand five hundred Saxons who were beheaded on the fame fpot, would have fomething to alledge againft the juftice and humanity of Charle

magne. His treatment of the vanquified Saxons was an abuse of the right of conqueft; his laws were not lefs fanguinary than his arms, and in the difcuffion of his motives, whatever is fubftracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper. The fedentary reader is amazed by his ineeffant activity of mind and body; and his fubjects and enemies were not lefs aftonished at his fudden prefence, at the moment when they believed him at the most distant extremity of the empire; neither peace nor war, nor fummer nor winter, were a fcafon of repose and our fancy cannot easily reconcile the annals of his reign with the geography of his expeditions. But this activity was a national rather than a perfonal virtue; the vagrant life of a Frank was spent in the chace, in pilgrimage, in military adventures; and the journies of Charlemagne were distinguished only by a more numerous train and a more important purpose. His military renown must be tried by the fcrutiny of his troops, his enemies, and his actions. Alexander conquered with the arms of Philip, but the two heroes who preceded Charlemagne, bequeathed him their name, their examples, and the companions of their victories. At the head of his veteran and fuperior armies, he opprefled the favage or degenerate nations, who were incapable of confederating for their common fafety: nor did he ever encounter an equal antagonist in numbers, in difcipline, or in arms. The fcience of war has been loft and revived with the arts of peace; but his campaigns are not illuftrated by any fiege or battle,

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of fingular difficulty and fuccefs; and he might behold, with envy, the Saracen trophies of his grandfather. After his Spanish expedition, his rear-guard was defeated in the Pyrenean mountains; and the foldiers, whofe fituation was irretrievable and whofe valour was ufelefs, might accufe, with their laft breath, the want of fkill or caution of their general. I touch with reverence the laws of Charlemagne, fo highly applauded by a refpectable judge. They compofe not a fyftem, but a feries, of occafional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses, the reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of his poultry, and even the fale of his eggs. He wished to improve the laws and the character of the Franks; and his attempts, however feeble and imperfect, are deferving of praise the inveterate evils of the times were fufpended or mollified by his government; but in his inftitutions I can feldom difcover the general views and the immortal fpirit of a legiflator, who furvives himself for the benefit of pofterity. The union and stability of his enpire depended on the life of a fingle man: he imitated the dangerous practice of dividing his kingdoms among his fons; and after his numerous diets, the whole conftitution was left to fluctuate between the disorders of anarchy and defpotifm. His efteem for the piety and knowledge of the clergy tempted him to entrust that afpiring order with temporal dominion and civil jurifdiction; and his fon Lewis,

when he was ftripped and degraded by the bishops, might accufe, in fome meafure, the imprudence of his father. His laws enforced the impofition of tythes, because the dæmons had proclaimed in the air that the default of payment had been the cause of the laft fcarcity. The literary merits of Charlemagne are attefted by the foundation of schools, the introduction of arts, the works which were published in his name, and his familiar connection with the fubjects and ftrangers whom he invited to his court to educate both the prince and people. His own ftudies were tardy, laborious, and imperfect; if he fpoke Latin, and understood Greek, he derived the rudiments of knowledge from converfation rather than from books; and, in his mature age, the emperor ftrove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant now learns in his infancy. The grammar and logic, the mufic and aftronomy, of the times, were only cultivated as the handmaids of fuperftition; but the curiofity of the human mind muft ultimately tend to its improvement, and the encouragement of learning reflects the pureft and most pleasing luftre on the character of Charlemagne. The dignity of his perfon, the length of his reign, the profperity of his arms, the vigour of his government, and the reverence of diftant nations, diftinguifh him from the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new æra from his reftoration of the Western empire."

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T the conclufion of the life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be expected, that I fhould balance his faults and virtues, that I fhould decide whether the title of enthusiast or impoftor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately converfant with the fon of Abdallah, the task would still be difficult, and the fuccefs uncertain: at the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his fhade through a cloud of religious incenfe; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an hour, the fleeting refemblance would not equally apply to the folitary of mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to have been endowed with a pious and contemplative difpofition: fo foon as marriage had railed him above the preffure of want, he avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of forty, he lived with innocence, and would have died with out a name. The unity of God is an idea most congenial to nature and reafon; and a flight converfation with the Jews and Chriftians would teach him to defpife and deteft the idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the doctrine of falvation, to refcue his country from the dominion of fin and error. The energy of a mind inceffantly bent on the fame object, would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the warm fuggeftions of the understanding, or the fancy, would be felt as the infpirations of heaven; the labour of thought would expire

in rapture and vifion; and the inward fenfation, the invifible monitor, would be defcribed with the form and attributes of an angel of God. From enthufiafim to impofture, the ftep is perilous and flippery: the damon of Socrates affords a memorable inftance, how a wife man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the confcience may flumber in a mixed and middle ftate between selfillufion and voluntary fraud. Charity may believe that the original motives of Mahomet were those of pure and genuine benevolence; but a human miffionary is incapable of cherishing the obftinate unbelievers who reject his claims, defpife his arguments, and perfecute his life; he might forgive his perfonal adverfaries, he may lawfully hate the enemies of God; the ftern paffions of pride and revenge were kindled in the bofom of Mahomet, and he fighed, like the prophet of Nineveh, for the deftruction of the rebels whom he had condemned. The injuftice of Mecca, and the choice of Medina, transformed the citizen into a prince, the humble preacher into the leader of armies; but his fword was confecrated by the example of the faints; and the fame God who afflicts a finful world with peftilence and earthquakes, might infpire for their converfion or chaftifement the valour of his fervants. In the exercife of political government, he was compelled to abate of the ftern rigour of fanaticism, to comply in fome measure with the prejudices and paffions of his followers, and to employ even the vices of mankind as the inftruments

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