infinite Jehovah from what they have when used by us, his finite creatures. To him, with whom a thousand years are as one day, centuries are as minutes. He looks on the future as we look on the past. To his infinite mind, grasping eternity and all events and things belonging to it, a thousand or ten thousand years are but as a short parenthesis in that boundless duration. which has neither beginning nor end. And even as addressed to us short-lived creatures, who measure our age by years and days, the declaration- Behold I come quickly,' is still true; for quick will that coming be in comparison of the eternal duration which shall succeed it-quick also will it be as compared with the four thousand years, or more, which preceded the first coming: and, which is perhaps the true sense, quickly will it follow upon the accomplishment of the other prophecies contained in this book. To attempt to fix the precise point beyond which the second advent cannot be delayed is, indeed, unwarrantable presumption; but to treat the subject with supercilious indifference is little less than avowed Infidelity. Does not that disposition so generally prevalent, to regard the coming of Christ to judge the world as indefinitely distant, argue an unwillingness to think of his coming at all? Do we thus usually put off in thought to as distant a period as possible those events the arrival of which we earnestly desire and long for? Reader-examine the state of your own feelings on this subject. Are you waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. i. 7)? Do you love his appearing (2 Tim. iv. 8)? Are you looking for it as that blessed hope (Tit. ii. 13), the fulfilment of which shall be the beginning of eternal glory, the consummation of your joy? Remember the solemn prophetic enquiry of your Divine Master- When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" Whatever may be your opinions on those points of theory and speculation in regard to which even the best and wisest men are not agreed, see at least that your feelings in respect to the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ accord with those of the beloved apostle, and that in reply to the announcement, BEHOLD, I COME QUICKLY,' you may be able to respond with heartfelt earnestness, AMEN; EVEN SO, COME, LORD JESUS!" (ii. 376).

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ART VII.- A History of the Romans under the Empire. By CHARLES MERIVALE, B.D., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. Two Vols. London: Longmans.

THE history of all nations in all periods presents a somewhat similar and in many points an almost identical aspect, for the plain reason that the individual components in the social organization, men, resemble one another in their passions and character all over the globe and in all times. The most absorbing affection of the human soul is a selfish desire of superiority and domination; and hence, in every state, the one party which from conquest or other circumstances has obtained the upper hand is prone to tyranny, and strives to maintain and even to extend its sway; whilst, on the other hand, the depressed section of the community as instinctively labours to rise to an equality of rights; and, if it succeed in the attempt, becomes in its turn the aggressor and strains after the ascendancy. But, at the same time that this must be acknowledged to be the result of man's mental constitution, it is equally certain that his happiness depends on these native tendencies being kept under due check and control; and just in proportion as selfishness yields to philanthrophy, and the seeking individual or class advantages is merged in higher and more beneficent aims, the community is blessed both with stability and expansive progress-in other words, the spirit of Christianity is necessary to moderate and to direct human passions and energies. Under all the different modifications of social elements and of government it is this truth which is most distinctly to be recognized as the grand lesson impressed on the mind by the diversified records of political movements and their effects.

The history of ancient Rome abundantly exemplifies this momentous doctrine. On perusing it the contest is found for a long time to be confined to the city-Rome itself: and the patricians and plebeians-the populus and the plebs-continue the violent and protracted struggle of opposing interests until at length the narrow pale of aristocratic privileges, after gradual enlargement, is done away, and the previously depressed class elevated to a level with the old burghers in law, religion, and political rights. This consolidation of two peoples into one opens an era of rapid military successes by which the empire of the city on the seven hills is extended throughout Italy. Hence spring new external relations, which after a time compel an internal development adapted to the change; and, as the outer circle of dominion has been greatly widened, the inner

circle of those possessing the rights of citizenship receives a qualified extension by the Latins being annexed to the Roman republic in subordinate communion. What had before been a battle between those holding a different political status now shifts into the antagonism of the rich and the poor. The contested point is supplied by the ager publicus or common lands. of the State, which the wealthy with the strong hand of power have succeeded in monopolizing; although their equal partition among both patricians and plebeians-the old terms being retained in reminiscence of the ancient feud after a cessation of the civil distinction-had been enacted by the Licinian rogations. The peculiarities of the Jus Latii, according to which those who have discharged certain local magistracies are enrolled in a plebeian tribe and admitted to plenary privileges as Roman citizens, together with indulgencies which the patricians found it to their own advantage to connive at, have had the effect of forming an aristocratic, or, as we may say, Tory nucleus in the Latin municipal towns; and from this source more fuel is flung on the glowing embers of contention. The Gracchi head the popular movement, propose and carry fresh agrarian laws, and thus win the day, although themselves perish in the strife. But the agitation does not subside-the inefficiency of the agrarian enactments continues to be complained of; and the poor citizens strengthen their cause by linking it with that of the Italians, who are beginning to clamour for admission to civic rights. The social war ensues-the fortune of Rome triumphs; but each nation, as it successively submits, is presented with the required boon and adopted into the Roman State. Thus the shadow of the seven hills of Rome and of the city walls ceases to be the limit of civil immunities; and about the year 88, B.C., the sea-line of the entire peninsula is substituted as the geographical boundary of the franchise.*

After such a political consummation had been effected under the auspices of Marius a re-action supervenes by the triumph of the antagonist and aristocratical party headed by Sylla. In fact the recent changes have not been unaccompanied with some startling ill results; among which the most prominent is that Rome has been converted into the vortex to which the dirt and fæculence of Italy are collected from all quarters in hurried and overflowing tide, the natural consequence of representative

3

*It must not be forgotten, however, that "the acquisition of the metropolitan involved the relinquishment of the local franchise ;" and was, therefore, declined by some States.

government being unknown. Sylla's sword falls with keen edge. on his foes, decimates the Italians, and sweeps away the popular chieftains. He prosecutes his political measures with great vigour he enfranchises a multitude of soldiers and slaves who are intended to act as a counterpoise against the Italian nations he sensibly abridges the tribunician power which had grown excessive, and re-establishes the senate in place of the equites on the judicial benches; but with much practical skill does not venture to tamper farther with the Marian constitution. On Sylla's abdication of the dictatorship the national difficulties very shortly prove to have been greatly augmented by the spirit of exclusiveness and adherence to old abuses which mark his retrograde policy. Injustice and cruelty towards the tributary States are the characteristics of Roman dominion as well as the prolific source of social degeneracy; and the oppressed provinces are left to groan under the extortionate avarice of successive proconsuls who have to repair dilapidated fortunes by the plunder of Syria or Spain; and whose single object in the administration is to accomplish the greatest possible rapine in the smallest possible period of time. Sylla's reforms have clipt the wings of the democracy; but left the patricians, like so many falcons, to pounce on what prey they may. The humbled Marian party does not succumb without a renewal of the struggle; and the flame of war communicates itself extensively. Spain rises to arms under the leadership of Sertorius; whilst in the East the King of Pontus, the most potent and bitter enemy of Rome, makes common cause with the races of Asia Minor, as well as with the Marian hero of Iberia. In addition to these causes of commotion the Cilician corsairs infest the Mediterranean; and in Italy itself a handful of fugitive gladiators, whose numbers accumulate by the turbulent and desperate flocking from all sides to their standard, carry terror to the gates of Rome. There is one man who in each of these emergencies proves the deliverer of his country, or at least is applauded as such by the voice of fame-this is Cn. Pompey, who had been styled the "Great" in anticipation by the dictator Sylla, and by such a title would seem to have been designated as his successor in guiding the destinies of the patrician oligarchy and maintaining their oppressive ascendancy.

A brief sketch such as the preceding is necessary in order to understand the state of parties and the subjects of dispute at the point of time when the grand drama of the Roman revolution, by which the imperial displaced the republican form of government, is opened. But, before entering into the nar rative, it is important to present the reader with a hasty picture

of the social and moral condition of the conquerors of the world at the crisis under review.

In the first place, Rome at this critical conjuncture offers to our survey two sides or phases as different as two extremes must always be, and yet, regarded in another light, materially similar. Whilst luxury and destitution-colossal fortunes and abject beggary-palaces and hovels, range side by side, vice is the common attribute of the aggrandised and impoverished classes alike. In the year of Sylla's death the most magnificent private edifice up to that date ever beheld in Rome was erected; but within so short a space as thirty-five years its splendour is related to have been eclipsed by no fewer than a hundred mansions. Not only at Rome, but by the sea-side in places of fashionable resort, superb villas were every day rising in glittering groups with a rapidity that seemed marvellous. All the appliances of luxury and refinement-baths, xysta, handsome porticos of such a length as to be measured by ten-foot rods, and situated so as to catch the cool breezes in the summer or collect the rays of the sun in the winter-rendered these dwellings acceptable to their delicate and fastidious owners. Inside their walls, what might be regarded as the trophies of the subject provinces, but were really the fruits of plunder and extortion-marbles, vases, paintings, statues were displayed in exhaustless profusion, and implied that the collected wealth of the possessors exceeded all bounds. Without the area of the dwelling, extensive gardens, adorned with grottoes and hallowed with temples, spread over a considerable space of the hills of Rome, or fringed the myrtle shores of Baixe or Naples. In some of the meadows, on which the apartments looked out, sheep might be seen feeding, with their wool dyed various colours to please the taste of the day, which, as is usual in a vicious community, had a predilection for the artifical and was less able to relish nature. The remains of vast aqueducts, which excite the astonishment of modern travellers, intersecting the soil of ancient Latium, attest the solicitude with which the Romans provided for the capital of the world an abundant water supply; and from huge reservoirs the stream was often conducted at great expense to suburban fish-ponds, where the indolent nobles consumed much of their time in watching the bearded mullets rise at the sound of the voice or the pipe and swim towards the extended hand. One of those, the applause of whose eloquence had often been echoed in the forum, Hortensius, received from Pompey the nickname of Xerxes Togatus, because he had cut through a mountain in order to introduce salt water into his fish-preserves. To obtain the