History, in general, signifies an account of the remarkable events which have happened in the world, arranged in the order in which they actually occurred, together with an explanation of the causes to which they were owing, and of the different effects they have produced as far as can be discovered. The word is Greek, ἱστορέω, and literally denotes a search of curious things, or a desire of knowing, or even a rehearsal of things we have seen, being formed from a word which properly signifies to know a thing by having seen it. But the idea now attached to the word is much more extensive, and it is applied to the knowledge of things derived from the report of others. Its origin is from the verb ἴδω, I know; and hence it is that, amongst the ancients, several of their great men were called polyhistorians, or persons of various and general knowledge. Sometimes, however, the word History is used to signify a description of things, as well as an account of facts. Thus Theophrastus calls the work in which he has treated of the nature and properties of plants, an History of Plants; we have also a treatise of Aristotle, entitled an History of Animals; and to this day the descriptions of plants, animals, and minerals, are called by the general name of Natural History.

But that which chiefly merits the name of history, and which is here considered as such, is an account of the principal transactions of mankind since the beginning of the world; and this is naturally divided into two parts, civil and ecclesiastical. The first contains the history of mankind in their various relations to one another, and of their actions, for their own benefit, or that of others, in common life; the second considers them as acting, or pretending to act, in obedience to that which they believe to be the will of the Supreme Being. Civil history, therefore, includes an account of all the different states which have existed in the world, and likewise of those men who in different ages have most eminently distinguished themselves either for good or evil actions. This last portion of civil history is usually termed Biography.

I. CIVIL HISTORY.

History, though apparently incapable of any natural division, will yet be found, on a nearer inspection, to resolve itself into the following periods: 1. The creation of man; 2. The deluge; 3. The commencement of profane history, when the fabulous relations of heroes and demigods were expelled from historical narratives, and men began to relate facts with some regard to truth and credibility; 4. The conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, and the destruction of the Babylonian empire; 5. The reign of Alexander the Great, and the overthrow of the Persian empire; 6. The destruction of Carthage by the Romans, when the latter had no longer any rival capable of opposing their designs; 7. The reign of the Emperor Trajan, when the Roman empire reached its utmost limits; 8. The division of the empire under Constantine; 9. The destruction of the western empire by the Heruli, and the settlement of the different European nations; 10. The rise of Mahommed, and the conquests of the Saracens and Turks; 11. The Crusades; and, lastly, all the space intervening between that time and the present.

Historians and chronologers are not agreed as to the first number of years which have elapsed since the creation of the world. The compilers of the Universal History determine it to have taken place 4305 years before Christ, so that, according to them, the world is now (1835) in the 6140th year of its age. Others think it was created only 4000 years before Christ, so that it has not yet attained its 6000th year. Be this as it may, however, the account of the creation rests wholly on the truth of the Mosaic history; and this we must of necessity admit, because we can find no other which does not either abound in the grossest absurdities, or involve us in absolute darkness. The Chinese and Egyptian pretensions to antiquity are too absurd and ridiculous to require serious confutation. Some historians and philosophers are inclined to discredit the Mosaic account, from the appearances of volcanoes, and other natural phenomena, exhibited in the internal structure and constitution of the earth. But their objections are by no means sufficient to invalidate the authority of the sacred writings; and their own systems are in fact liable to insuperable objections. It is therefore reasonable to adopt as true the Mosaic account of the creation. But an historian is under an absolute necessity of doing so, because, without it, he is destitute of any standard or scale by which he can reduce the chronology of different nations to any agreement; indeed, without receiving this account as true, it would be in a manner impossible at this day to write a general history of the world.

The transactions during the first period, that is, from the creation to the deluge, are very imperfectly known, nothing being recorded of them but what is to be found in the first six chapters of Genesis. In general, however, we learn that men were not at that time in a savage state. They had made some progress in the arts, invented music, and found out the method of working metals. They seem also to have lived in one vast community, without any of those divisions into different nations which have since taken place, and which is supposed to have proceeded from the confusion of languages. The most material part of their history, however, is, that having once begun to transgress the divine commands, they proceeded to greater and greater degrees of wickedness, till at last the Deity thought proper to overwhelm the earth with a deluge, which destroyed the whole human race except eight persons, namely, Noah and his family. This terrible catastrophe happened, according to the Hebrew copy of the Bible, 1656 years after the creation; according to the Samaritan copy, 1307. For the different conjectures concerning the natural causes of the flood, see the article Deluge.

For the history of the second period, that of the deluge itself, we must also have recourse to the Scriptures. We now find the human race reduced to eight persons, possessed of nothing but what they had saved in the ark, whilst the earth, desolated by the flood, had to be re-stocked with animals from those which had been preserved along with the eight persons who had escaped the general destruction. In what country this original settlement was effected, we are not informed. The ark is supposed to have rested on Mount Ararat, in Armenia; but it is impossible to ascertain whether Noah and his sons made any stay in the neighbourhood of that mountain. It appears, however, that some time afterwards, the whole or the greater part of the human race were assembled in Babylonia, where they engaged in building a high tower, as a place of refuge in the event of the recurrence of another deluge. This, however, gave offence to the Deity, who punished them by confounding their language; and hence originated the division of mankind into different nations.

According to a common opinion, Noah, when dying, left the whole world to his sons, giving Asia to Shem, Africa to Ham, and Europe to Japhet. But this notion or tradition receives not the least sanction from Scripture. It is believed, however, that Gomer the son of Japhet was the father of the Gomerians or Celts, or, in other words, of all the barbarous nations who under various names inhabited the northern parts of Europe; that from Magog, Meshech, and Tubal, three of Gomer's brethren, proceeded the Scythians, Sarmatians, Tartars, and Moguls; and that from the three other sons of Japhet, Madai, Javan, and Tirzah, sprung the Medes, the Ionians, the Greeks, and the Thracians. The children of Shem were Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. The first settled in Persia, where he became the father of that mighty nation; the descendants of Ashur peopled Assyria or Kurdistan; Arphaxad settled in Chaldea; Lud is supposed by Josephus to have taken up his residence in Lydia, though this is disputed; and Aram is thought to have settled in Mesopotamia and Syria. The children of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. The first is supposed to have remained in Babylonia, and to have been king of the south-eastern parts of it, afterwards called Khazistan. His descendants are believed to have removed into the eastern parts of Arabia, from which by degrees they migrated into the corresponding parts of Africa. The second peopled Egypt, Ethiopia, Cyrenaica, Libya, and the other northern parts of the same continent. The place where Put settled is not known; but Canaan is universally allowed to have settled in Phenicia, and to have founded those nations who inhabited Judaea, and were afterwards exterminated by the Jews.

Almost all the countries of the eastern continent being thus furnished with inhabitants, it is probable that for many years few or no quarrels would arise between different nations. The paucity of their numbers, their distance from one another, and their diversity of language, would operate as an obstacle to intercommunication. Hence, according to the different circumstances in which the various tribes were placed, some would be more civilized and others more barbarous. In this interval also the different nations probably acquired different characters, which they afterwards retained, and manifested on all occasions; hence the propensity of some nations to monarchy, as the Asiatics, and the enthusiastic desire of the Greeks for liberty and republicanism.

The commencement of monarchical government dates from a very early period, Nimrod the son of Cush having found means to make himself king of Babylonia. In a short time Ashur, having emigrated from the new kingdom, built Nineveh, afterwards capital of the Assyrian empire, and two other cities, called Rezen and Roboboth, as to the situation of which we are in a state of profound ignorance. Whether Ashur at this time set up as an independent king, or whether he held these cities as vassal to Nimrod, is unknown. It is probable, however, that about the same time various kingdoms were founded in different parts of the world; and these were great or small according to circumstances. The Scripture mentions the kings of Egypt, Gerar, Sodom, and Gomorrah, in the time of Abraham; and we may reasonably suppose that these kings reigned over nations which had existed for some time before.

The first considerable revolution we read of is the migration of the Israelites out of Egypt, and their establishment in the land of Canaan. For the history of these transactions we must refer to the Old Testament, where the reader will find that it was attended with a terrible catastrophe to the Egyptians, and with the utter extermination of some nations, the descendants of Ham, who inhabited Judaea. How far the overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red Sea affected the Egyptian nation cannot easily be determined; and in fact it seems exceedingly difficult to account for the total silence of their records concerning so remarkable an event, as well as for the general obscurity and uncertainty in which the early history of Egypt is involved. The settlement of the Jews in the promised land of Canaan is supposed to have happened about 1491 before Christ.

For nearly two centuries after this period, we find no accounts of any other nation than those mentioned in Scripture. About 1280 before Christ, the Greeks began to make other nations feel the effects of that enterprising and martial spirit for which they were so remarkable, and which they had undoubtedly exercised upon one another. Their first enterprise was an invasion of Colchis, now Mingrelia, for the sake of the golden fleece. Whatever was the nature of this expedition, they appear to have succeeded in it; and it is likewise probable, that it was this specimen of the riches of Asia which ever afterwards inclined them so much to Asiatic expeditions.

All this time we are totally in the dark concerning the state of Asia and Africa, excepting in as far as can be conjectured from Scripture.

About 1184 years before Christ, the Greeks again distinguished themselves by their expedition against Troy, a city of Phrygia Minor, which they plundered and burned, massacring the inhabitants with the most unrelenting cruelty. Æneas, a Trojan prince, escaped with some followers into Italy, where he is supposed to have become indirectly founder of the Roman empire. At this time Greece was divided into a number of small principalities, most of which seem to have been in subjection to Agamemnon king of Mycenæ. In the reign of Atreus, the father of this Agamemnon, the Heraclids, or descendants of Hercules, who had been formerly banished by Eurystheus, were again obliged to leave this country. Under their champion Hyllus they claimed the kingdom of Mycenæ as their right, pretending that it belonged to their great ancestor Hercules, who was unjustly deprived of it by Eurystheus. The controversy was decided by single combat; and Hyllus being killed, they departed, as had been before agreed upon, under a promise of not making any attempt to return for fifty years. About the epoch of the Trojan war, the Lydians, Mysians, and some other nations of Asia Minor, are first mentioned in history. The names of the Greek states mentioned during this uncertain period are, Sicyon, Leleg, Messina, Athens, Crete, Argos, Sparta, Pelasgia, Thessaly, Attica, Phocis, Locris, Ozela, Corinthi, Eleusina, Elis, Pilus, Arcadia, Aegina, Ithaca, Cephalonia, Phthia, Phocidia, Ephyra, Æolia, Calista, Thebes, Ætolia, Doloppa, Æchalia, Mycenæ, Euboea, Myria, Doris, Phera, Iola, Trachina, Thesprotia, Myrmidonia, Salamine, Scyros, Hyperia or Melite, the Veleian isles, Megara, Epirus, Achaea, and isles of the Ægean Sea. Concerning many of these we know nothing besides their names; and the most remarkable particulars concerning the others may be found under these respective heads.

About 1048 before Christ, the kingdom of Judæa under David approached its utmost extent of power. In its most flourishing condition, however, it was never remarkable for the largeness of its territory. In this respect it scarcely exceeded the kingdom of Scotland; though, according to the accounts given in Scripture, the magnificence of Solomon was superior to that of the most potent monarchs on earth. This extraordinary wealth was owing partly to the spoils amassed by David in his conquests over his various enemies, and partly to the commerce with the East Indies which Solomon had established. Of this commerce he owed his share to the friendship of Hiram king of Tyre, a city of Phœnicia, the inhabitants of which were then the most famed for commerce and skill in maritime affairs of any in the world.

After the death of Solomon, which happened about 975 before Christ, the Jewish empire began to decline; and soon afterwards many powerful states arose in different parts of the world. The disposition of mankind in general seems now to have taken a new turn, not easily to be accounted for. In former times, whatever wars might occur between neighbouring nations, we have no account of any extensive empire in the world, or of any prince undertaking to reduce distant nations under subjection. The empire of Egypt indeed is said to have been of great extent, even before the days of Sesostris, who was also a great conqueror. Of the remote history of this country, however, our knowledge is so imperfect, that scarcely anything certain, or even probable, can be concluded from it.

But now, as it were all at once, we find almost every nation aiming at universal monarchy, and refusing to set any bounds whatever to its ambition. The first shock given to Jewish greatness was the division of the kingdom, through the imprudence of Rehoboam. This rendered it more easily a prey to Shishak, king of Egypt, who five years afterwards came and pillaged Jerusalem, and all the fortified cities of the kingdom of Judah. The commerce to the East Indies was now discontinued, and consequently the sources of wealth were in a great measure cut off; and this, added to the perpetual wars between the kings of Israel and Judah, contributed to that remarkable and speedy decline which now took place in Jewish affairs.

This Shishak, who undertook the expedition against Jerusalem, recorded in Scripture, is now known to be identical with the Scheshonk mentioned on the Egyptian monuments. His infantry is described as an innumerable host, composed of different African nations; and his cavalry is stated at sixty thousand, with twelve hundred chariots. These numbers are most probably exaggerated, and all that we can infer from them is, that the invading host was too numerous to be resisted by any force which could be brought against it. We may also observe, that the policy of the elder Pharaohs seems to have differed entirely from that pursued by their successors. In the earlier ages of the monarchy, the sovereigns of Egypt, animated by a spirit of conquest, sought to extend their dominions by the power of the sword, and, with this view, undertook distant expeditions. But experience at length convinced them of the extreme hazards incident to a system of aggression on the part of a country which, from its position and configuration, was peculiarly open to attack; reverses taught wisdom even to those who are generally the last to profit by the severe lessons of adversity; and a change of system ensued. It was felt that an advanced state of civilisation, surrounded on all sides by barbarism and ferocity, could only maintain itself by concentrating its means, and following a system strictly defensive; that the policy of nations must be accommodated partly to their actual position, and partly to the relations in which they stand to those by whom they are encompassed; and that prudence may long preserve what temerity would speedily overthrow. Hence the aggressive policy of the elder Pharaohs gradually merged into that Chinese system of conservation and exclusion which characterised the government of Egypt at the time when the early Greek writers first became acquainted with the country, and which, from not attending to the change we have alluded to, the latter have described as if it had always prevailed. Shishak or Scheshonk was amongst the last of the Egyptian princes who attempted foreign conquests, or conducted expeditions against the neighbouring nations.

But though the Jews obtained a temporary deliverance from this invader, they were soon afterwards attacked by new enemies. In 941 before Christ, Zerah, an Ethiopian, invaded Judæa with an army, it is said, of a million of infantry and three hundred chariots; but he was defeated with great slaughter by Asa king of Judah, who engaged him with an army of more than half a million of men. About this time also the Syrians, who had grown a considerable people, showed themselves bitter enemies to the kings both of Israel and of Judah, aiming, in fact, at the conquest of both nations. Their kingdom commenced in the days of David, under Hadadezer, whose capital was Zobal, and who probably was at last obliged to become a tributary of David, after having been defeated by him in several engagements. Before the death of David, however, Rezon, who had rebelled against Hadadezer, having found means to make himself master of Damascus, erect- ed a new kingdom, which soon became powerful. The Syrian princes being thus in the neighbourhood of the rival states of Israel and Judah, whose capitals were Samaria and Jerusalem, found it an easy matter to weaken both, by pretending to assist the one against the other; but a detail of the transactions between the Jews and Syrians is to be found in the Old Testament, to which therefore the reader is referred. In 740 before Christ, however, the Syrian empire was totally destroyed by Tiglathpileser, king of Assyria; as was also the kingdom of Samaria by Shalmaneser his successor, about twenty years thereafter. The people were either massacred or carried captive into Media, Persia, and the countries around the Caspian Sea.

Whilst the nations of the East were thus destroying each other, the foundations of formidable empires were laid in the West. In Africa, Carthage was founded by a Tyrian colony, about 869 before Christ, according to those who ascribe the highest antiquity to that city; and in Europe also a considerable revolution took place about 900 before Christ. The Heraclidae, who had been expelled from Greece by Atreus, the father of Agamemnon, after several unsuccessful attempts, at length conquered the whole Peloponnesus. From this time the Grecian states became more civilized, and their history is less obscure. The institution, or rather the revival and continuance, of the Olympic games, in 776 before Christ, also greatly facilitated the writing, not only of their own history, but of that of other nations; for as each Olympiad consisted of four years, the chronology of every important event became fixed by referring it to these periods or divisions of time. In 748 before Christ, or the last year of the seventh Olympiad, the foundations of the city of Rome were laid by Romulus; and, forty-three years afterwards, the Spartan state was new-modelled, and received from Lycurgus those laws by means of which it afterwards arrived at such a pitch of splendour.

With the beginning of the 28th Olympiad, or 568 before Christ, commences the third general period above mentioned, when profane history becomes somewhat more clear, and the relations of different nations may be depended upon with some degree of certainty. The general state of the world was then as follows. At this period, the northern parts of Europe were either thinly inhabited, or filled with unknown and barbarous nations, the ancestors of those who afterwards destroyed the Roman empire. France and Spain were inhabited by the Gomerians or Celts. Italy was divided into a number of petty states, consisting partly of Gaulish and partly of Grecian colonies, amongst whom the Romans had already become formidable. The latter were governed by their king Servius Tullius; had increased their city by the demolition of Alba Longa, and the removal of its inhabitants to Rome; and had enlarged their dominions by several cities taken from their neighbours. Greece was also divided into a number of small states, amongst which the Athenians and Spartans, the most remarkable, were rivals. The former had, about 599 before Christ, received an excellent system of laws from Solon, and were enriching themselves by navigation and commerce. The latter were become formidable by the martial institutions of Lycurgus, and, having conquered Messenia, and added its territory to their own, were justly esteemed the most powerful people in Greece. The other states of most consideration were Corinth, Thebes, Argos, and Arcadia. In Asia great revolutions had taken place. The ancient kingdom of Assyria was destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians, its capital city Nineveh was utterly ruined, and the greater part of its inhabitants were carried to Babylon. Nay, the very materials of which it was built were carried off, to adorn and give strength to that stately metropolis, which was then undoubtedly the first city in the world. By Nebuchadnezzar, who now sat on the throne of Babylon, the kingdom of Judea was totally overthrown in 587 before Christ. Three years before this he had taken and razed the city of Tyre, and overrun all the kingdom of Egypt. He is even said by Josephus to have conquered Spain, and reigned there nine years, after which he abandoned it to the Carthaginians; but this seems by no means probable. The extent of the Babylonian empire is not certainly known. But, from what is recorded of it, we may conclude that it was not at all inferior in magnitude to any that had ever existed; and the Scripture informs us that it was superior in wealth to any of the succeeding ones. We know that it comprehended Phoenicia, Palestine, Syria, Babylonia, Media, and Persia, and not improbably India; and, from a consideration of this vast extent of territory, and the riches with which every one of these countries abounded, we may form some idea of the wealth and power of this monarch. When we consider also, that the whole strength of this mighty empire was employed in beautifying the metropolis, we cannot consider the wonders of that city, as related by Herodotus, as at all incredible. As to what passed about this time in the republic of Carthage we are left quite in the dark; there being a chasm in its history of not less than three hundred years.

The fourth general period of history, namely, from the end of the fabulous times to the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, is very short, including no more than thirty-one years. This sudden revolution was occasioned by the misconduct of Evilmerodach, Nebuchadnezzar's son, even in his father's life-time. For having, in a great hunting match on occasion of his marriage, entered the country of the Medes, and some of his troops coming up at the same time to relieve the garrisons in those places, he joined them to those already with him, and without the least provocation began to plunder and lay waste the neighbouring country. This produced an immediate revolt, which quickly extended over all Media and Persia. The Medes, headed by Astyages, and his son Cyaxares, drove back Evilmerodach and his party with great slaughter; nor does it appear that they were afterwards reduced even by Nebuchadnezzar himself. The new empire continued daily to gather strength; and at last Cyrus, grandson to Astyages, a prince of great prudence and valour, being appointed generalissimo of the Median and Persian forces, took Babylon itself in the year 538 before Christ.

During this period the Romans increased in power under the wise administration of their king Servius Tullius, who, though a pacific prince, rendered his people more formidable by a peace of twenty years than his predecessors had done by all their victories. The Greeks, even at this early period, began to interfere with the Persians, on account of the Ionians, or Grecian colonies in Asia Minor. These had been subdued by Croesus king of Lydia about the year 562, the time of Nebuchadnezzar's death. Whether the Lydians had been subdued by the Babylonian monarch or not, cannot now be ascertained, though it is very probable that they were either in subjection to him, or greatly awed by his power, as before his death nothing considerable was undertaken by them. It is indeed probable, that during the insanity of Nebuchadnezzar, spoken of by Daniel, the affairs of his kingdom must have fallen into confusion; and that many of those princes whom he had formerly retained in subjection must have set up for themselves. Certain it is, however, that if the Babylonians did not regard Croesus as their subject, they looked upon him as a faithful ally; insomuch that they celebrated an annual feast in commemoration of a victory obtained by him over the Scythians. After the death of Nebuchadnezzar, Croesus subdued many nations in Asia Minor, and amongst these the Ionians, as already related. They were, however, greatly attached to his government; for though they paid tribute, and were obliged to furnish some forces in time of war, they were yet free from all kinds of oppression. When Cyrus therefore was proceeding in his conquests of different parts of the Babylonian empire, before he proceeded to attack the capital, the Ionians refused to submit to him, though he offered them very advantageous terms. But soon afterwards, Croesus himself being defeated and taken prisoner, the Ionians sent ambassadors to Cyrus, offering to submit on the terms which had formerly been proposed. But these terms were now refused; and the Ionians, having determined to resist, applied to the Spartans for assistance. The Spartans however could not at that time be prevailed upon to give their countrymen any aid; but they sent ambassadors to Cyrus with a threatening message, to which he returned a contemptuous answer, and then forced the Ionians to yield at discretion, five years before the taking of Babylon. Thus commenced the hatred between the Greeks and Persians; and thus in the first two great monarchies the seeds of destruction were sown even before these monarchies were themselves established. For whilst Nebuchadnezzar occupied himself in raising the Babylonian empire, his son was destroying what his father built up; and at the very time when Cyrus was establishing the Persian monarchy, that prince, by his ill-timed severity to the Greeks, rendered that warlike people his enemies. The transactions of Africa during this period are almost entirely unknown; though we cannot doubt that the Carthaginians enriched themselves by means of their commerce, which afterwards enabled them to attain a considerable share of power.

Cyrus having now become master of all the East, Asiatic affairs continued for some time in a state of tranquillity. The Jews obtained liberty to return to their own country, to rebuild their temple, and to re-establish their worship; though from that time they must have been in a state of dependence on the Persians. Cambyses, the successor of Cyrus, added to his empire Egypt, which had either not submitted to Cyrus, or had revolted soon after his death. He intended also to have subdued the Carthaginians; but as the Phoenicians refused to supply him with ships to fight against their own countrymen, he was obliged to lay aside this design.

In 517 before Christ, the Babylonians finding themselves oppressed by their Persian masters, resolved to shake off the yoke, and establish their independence. For this purpose, they took care to store their city with all manner of provisions; and when Darius Hystaspes, then king of Persia, advanced against them, they employed a most barbarous method to prevent an unnecessary consumption of the provisions which they had so carefully amassed. Having collected into one place all the women, old men, and children, they strangled them without distinction, whether wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, or sisters; every one being allowed to save only the wife he liked best, and a maid servant to do the work of the house. But this cruel policy did not avail them. Their city, which could not be carried by force, was taken by treachery; after which the king caused the walls to be reduced from two hundred to fifty cubits in height, that their strength might no longer give encouragement to the inhabitants to revolt. Darius then turned his arms against the Scythians; but finding that his expedition against that people proved both tedious and unprofitable, he directed his course eastward, and reduced all the country as far as the Indus. In the mean time the Ionians revolted; and being assisted by the Greeks, a war commenced between the two nations, which was not thoroughly extinguished till the destruction of the Persian empire, in the year before Christ 330. The Ionians, however, after a war of six years, were for this time obliged to submit, and were treated with great severity by the Persians. The conquest of Greece itself was then projected. But the expeditions undertaken with that view ended most unfortunately for the Persians, and encouraged the Greeks to make reprisals, in which they succeeded according to their utmost wishes; and if they had agreed amongst themselves, the overthrow of the Persian empire would not have been reserved for Alexander.

In 459 the Egyptians made an attempt to recover their liberty, but, after a war of six years, they were reduced to submission. In the year 413 they revolted a second time. On this occasion they were assisted by the Sidonians, a circumstance which drew upon the latter that terrible destruction foretold by the prophets; whilst the principals were themselves so thoroughly humbled, that they never afterwards made any attempt to recover their liberty. The cruelties exercised by the Persians in Egypt were without example even in the annals of the barbarous nation by whom they were perpetrated. The familiar illustration of a bull in a china shop presents but a faint image of a fanatical savage with arms in his hands, let loose amidst the monuments of a high civilization. The Egyptians, however, made two gallant efforts to recover their lost independence. Despair gave them courage; and if they had not been tainted with that degeneracy which always follows in the train of refinement, when untempered and unennobled by the spirit of liberty, success would probably have crowned their efforts. But insurrections are always easily put down in countries where the many exist only for the few, where the people are nothing, and the only point at issue is a question between one despot and another.

The year 403 before Christ proved remarkable for the revolt of Cyrus against his brother Artaxerxes Memnon; a revolt in which, through his own rashness, he miscarried, and lost his life at the battle of Cunaxa, in the province of Babylon. Ten thousand Greek auxiliaries, who had served in his army, made their way back to Greece, though in the heart of a hostile country, and surrounded on all sides by the enemy. In this retreat they were commanded by Xenophon, who has received the highest commendation for his conduct and military skill in bringing it to a happy conclusion. Nor can any praise exceed the merit of having successfully conducted so difficult and perilous an enterprise. A rude barbarian, if success happen to crown the first impulsion of brute force, may easily urge on the rolling tide of conquest; but a retrograde movement, like that executed by Xenophon, requires a combination of the highest and noblest powers of the human mind; anxious prudence, invincible fortitude, prompt decision, inexhaustible fertility in resources, and great knowledge of mankind, blended with superior tactical skill and strategical science, intuitive sagacity in discerning the truth amidst conflicting probabilities, and an entire command of all those artifices or stratagems by which the calculations of an enemy may be deranged, whilst the end contemplated is at the same time accomplished. Two years afterwards the invasions of Agesilaus king of Sparta threatened the Persian empire with total destruction; but from this danger it was relieved by his being recalled to defend his country against the other Grecian states.

During this time the volatile and giddy temper of the Greeks, with their enthusiastic desire of romantic exploits, were preparing for themselves fetters which indeed seemed to be absolutely necessary to prevent them from destroying one another. A zeal for liberty was what they all pretended; but upon most occasions it appeared that this love of liberty was only a desire of dominion. No state in Greece could bear to see another equal to itself; and hence their perpetual contests for pre-eminence, which served to weaken the whole body, and to render them an easy prey to an ambitious and politic prince, capable of taking advantage of their intestine divisions. Being all equally impatient of restraint, they never could endure submission to any regular government; and hence their determinations were little else than the decisions of a mob, of which they had afterwards almost constantly reason to repent. Hence also their unworthy treatment of those eminent men whom they ought most to have honoured; of Miltiades, Aristides, Themistocles, Alcibiades, Socrates, Phocion, and others. The various transactions between the Grecian states, though they cut a considerable figure in their own history, make none whatever in a general sketch of the history of the world. We shall therefore merely observe, that in 404 before Christ, the Athenian power was in a manner totally broken by the taking of their city by the Spartans. In 370 that of the Spartans received a severe check from the Thebans at the battle of Leuctra, and eight years afterwards it was still further reduced by the battle of Mantinea. Epaminondas, the great enemy of the Spartans, was killed; but this proved only a more speedy means of subjugating all the states to a foreign, and at that time despicable power. The Macedonians, a barbarous nation, situated to the north of the states of Greece, were, two years after the death of Epaminondas, reduced to the lowest ebb by the Illyrians. The king of Macedonia being killed in an engagement, Philip his brother departed from Thebes, where he had studied the art of war under Epaminondas, to take possession of his kingdom. Being a man of great prudence and policy, he quickly settled his own affairs, vanquished the Illyrians, and, being no stranger to the weakened situation of Greece, began almost immediately to meditate the conquest of it. As the particulars of this enterprise are related under another head, it is sufficient to notice here, that by first attacking those whom he was sure to overcome, by corrupting those whom he thought it dangerous to attack, by pretending sometimes to assist one state and sometimes another, and by imposing upon all as best served his turn, he at last deprived the Greeks of all power of resistance, at least such as could prevent him from attaining his end. In 338 he caused himself to be elected general of the Amphictyons, or council of the Grecian states, under pretence of settling some disturbances which then existed in Greece; but having once obtained liberty to enter that country with an army, he soon convinced the states that they must all submit to his will. He was opposed by the Athenians and Thebans; but the intestine wars of Greece had cut off all her great men, and no general was now to be found capable of opposing him with success.

The king of Macedonia having thus made himself master of the whole of Greece, projected the conquest of Asia. To this he was encouraged by the reverses which had attended the Persians in their expeditions against Greece, the successes of the Greeks in their invasions, and the memorable retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon. All these events showed the weakness of the Persians, their vast inferiority to the Greeks in military skill, and how easily their empire might be overthrown by a proper union amongst the states. But whilst Philip was preparing to enter upon his grand enterprise, he was murdered by some assassins. His son Alexander, however, was possessed of every quality necessary for the execution of so great a design; and his impetuosity of temper enabled him to carry it into effect with a rapidity unheard of either before or since. It must be confessed, indeed, that the Persian empire was now ripe for destruction, and could not in all probability have withstood an enemy much less powerful than Alexander. The Asiatics have in all ages been much inferior to the European nations in valour and military skill. They were now sunk in luxury and effeminacy; and, what was worse, they seem at this period to have been seized with that infatuation and distraction of councils which scarcely ever fails to prove the forerunner of destruction. The Persian ministers persuaded their sovereign to reject the prudent advice which was given him, to distress Alexander by laying waste the country, and thus forcing him to return for want of provisions. Nay, they even prevented him from engaging the enemy to advantage, by dividing his forces; and persuaded him to put to death Charidemus the Athenian, who had promised with one hundred thousand men, of whom one third were auxiliaries, to drive the Greeks out of Asia. In his Persian expedition, therefore, Alexander met with only two checks. The one was before Tyre, which for seven months resisted his utmost efforts; and the other was from Memnon the Rhodian, who had undertaken to invade Macedonia. The first of these obstacles Alexander at last surmounted, and treated the governor and inhabitants with the utmost cruelty. The other was scarcely felt; for Memnon died after reducing some of the Grecian islands, and Darius had no other general capable of conducting the enterprise. The Persian empire was totally broken by the victory gained over Darius at Arbela in 331, and next year an end was put to the monarchy by the murder of the king, who fell by the hand of Bessus, one of his own subjects.

The ambition of Alexander was not to be satisfied with the possession of the kingdom of Persia, nor indeed of any other on earth. Nothing less than the total subjection of the world itself seemed sufficient to him; and hence he was now prompted to invade every country of which he could only learn the name, whether it had belonged to the Persians or to other nations. In consequence of this disposition, he invaded and reduced Hyrcania, Bactria, Sogdia, and all the vast tract of country now called Bakharia; and having entered India, he reduced all the nations as far as the Hyphasis, one of the branches of the Indus. But when he desired to proceed farther, and extend his conquests to the eastern extremities of Asia, his troops positively refused to follow him, and he was constrained to return. In 323 before Christ this mighty conqueror died of a fever, without having time to settle the affairs of his vast extended empire, or even to name his successor.

Whilst a Grecian empire thus suddenly sprung up in the East, the rival states of Rome and Carthage were making considerable advances in the West. The Romans were establishing their empire on the most solid foundations, to which their particular situation materially contributed. Being originally little better than lawless banditti, they were despised and hated by the neighbouring states; and this soon produced wars, in which, at first from accidental circumstances, and afterwards from their superior valour and conduct, the Romans proved almost constantly victorious. The jealousies which prevailed amongst the Italian states, and their ignorance of their true interest, prevented them from combining against that aspiring nation, and crushing it in its infancy; whilst the Romans, on the other hand, being kept in a state of continual warfare, became at last such expert soldiers, that no other state on earth was capable of resisting them. During the time of their kings they made a considerable figure amongst the Italian nations; but after the expulsion of the kings, and the commencement of the republic, their conquests became much more rapid and extensive. In 501 before Christ they subdued the Sabines; eight years afterwards the Latins; and in 399 before Christ the city of Veii, the strongest in Italy, was taken after a siege of ten years. But, in the midst of their successes, a sudden irruption of the Gauls had almost put an end to their power and existence as a nation. The city was burned to the ground in 383 before Christ, and the capital on the point of being surprised, when the Gauls, who were climbing up the walls in the night, were accidentally discovered and repulsed. In a short time Rome was rebuilt with greater splendour than before; but now there occurred a general revolt and combination of the nations formerly subdued. The Romans however still proved superior to their enemies; but, even at the time of the death of Camillus, which happened about 352 before Christ, their territories scarcely extended six or seven leagues from the capital. The republic from the beginning was agitated by those dissensions which at last proved its ruin. The people had been divided by Romulus into two classes, Patricians and Plebeians, answering to our nobility and commonalty. Between these two bodies there existed perpetual jealousies and contentions, which retarded the progress of the Roman conquests, and revived the hopes of the nations whom they had conquered. The tribunes of the people were perpetually opposing the consuls and military tribunes. The senate had often recourse to a dictator intrusted with absolute power, and then the valour and experience of the Roman troops rendered them victorious; but the recurrence of domestic seditions gave the subjugated nations an opportunity of shaking off the yoke. Thus the Romans had continued for nearly four hundred years, running the same round of wars with the same enemies, and reaping very little advantage from their conquests, till at last matters were compounded by choosing one of the consuls from amongst the plebeians; and from this time chiefly we may date the prosperity of Rome, so that by the time when Alexander the Great died, they were held in considerable estimation amongst foreign nations.

The Carthaginians in the mean time continued to enrich themselves by commerce; but being less conversant with military affairs, they were by no means equal to the Romans in power, though they excelled them in wealth. During this period, however, a new state made its appearance, which may be said to have taught the Carthaginians the art of war, and, by bringing them into contact with the Romans, proved the original source of contention between these two powerful nations. This was the island of Sicily. At what precise time this island was first settled, has not been ascertained. The earliest inhabitants we read of were called Sicanii, Siculi, Laestrigones; but of these we know little or nothing. In the second year of the seventeenth Olympiad, or 710 before Christ, some Greek colonies arrived on the island, and in a short time founded several cities, the chief of which was Syracuse. The Syracusans at length subdued the original inhabitants, though it does not appear that the latter were ever well affected to their government. The first considerable prince, or, as he is called by the Greeks, tyrant of Syracuse, was Gelon, who obtained the sovereignty about the year 483 before Christ. At what time the Carthaginians first carried their arms into Sicily is not certainly known; but we are assured that they possessed some part of the island as early as 505 before Christ. In the time of the first consuls, the Romans and Carthaginians entered into a treaty chiefly in regard to matters of navigation and commerce, by which it was stipulated that the Romans who might touch at Sardinia, or that part of Sicily which belonged to Carthage, should be received there in the same manner as the Carthaginians themselves. It hence appears that the dominion of Carthage already extended over Sardinia and part of Sicily; but, twenty-eight years afterwards, the Carthaginians had been totally driven out by Gelon. This was probably the first exploit performed by him; at least such is the conclusion deduced from his speech to the Athenian and Spartan ambassadors, who desired his assistance against the forces of Xerxes king of Persia. To regain their possessions in this island the Carthaginians made many attempts, which occasioned long and bloody wars between them and the Greeks. The island also proved the scene of much slaughter and bloodshed in the wars of the Greeks with one another. Previously to the year 323 before Christ, however, the Carthaginians had made themselves masters of a considerable part of it, and from this all the power of the Greeks failed to dislodge them. It is proper also to observe, that after the destruction of Tyre by Alexander the Great, almost all the commerce in the western part of the world fell to the share of the Carthaginians. Whether they had at this time effected any settlements in Spain is not known. It is certain that they traded to that country for the sake of the silver in which it abounded, as, according to most accounts, they did also to Britain for the tin which it produced.

The beginning of the sixth period presents us with Sixth pe. a state of the world entirely different from any thing that preceded it. We now behold all the eastern part of the world, from the confines of Italy to the Indus, and even beyond it, united into one vast empire, and at the same time ready to fall to pieces for want of a proper head; and the western world filled with fierce and savage nations, whom the rival republics of Carthage and Rome were preparing to enslave as fast as they could. The first remarkable events took place in the Macedonian empire. Alexander, as already observed, had not distinctly named any successor; but he had left behind him a victorious and invincible army, commanded by most expert officers, all of them ambitious of supreme authority. It is not to be supposed that peace could long be preserved in such a situation. For a number of years, indeed, nothing was heard of but horrid slaughters, and wickedness of every kind, until at last the mother, wives, children, brothers, and even sisters, of Alexander, were cut off, not one of the family of that great conqueror being left alive. When these disturbances had somewhat subsided, four new empires, each of them of no small extent, arose out of that of Alexander. Cassander, the son of Antipater, received Macedonia and Greece; Antigonus got Asia Minor; Seleucus had Babylon and the eastern provinces; and Ptolemy Lagus obtained Egypt and the western countries of Africa. One of these empires, however, quickly fell to pieces. Antigonus being defeated and killed by Seleucus and Lysimachus at the battle of Ipsus, in 301 before Christ, the greater part of his dominions fell to Seleucus; but several provinces took the advantage of this confusion to shake off the Macedonian yoke, and thus were formed the kingdoms of Pontus, Bithynia, Pergamus, Armenia, and Cappadocia. The two most powerful and permanent empires, however, were those of Syria, founded by Seleucus, and of Egypt, founded by Ptolemy Lagus. The kings of Macedonia, though they did not preserve the same authority over the Grecian states which Alexander, Antipater, and Cassander, had done, yet effectually prevented them from committing those outrages upon one another for which they had formerly been so remarkable. Indeed it is somewhat difficult to determine whether their condition was better or worse than before they were conquered by Philip; for, though they were now prevented from destroying one another, they were grievously oppressed by the Macedonian tyrants.

Whilst the eastern parts of the world were thus deluged with blood, and the successors of Alexander were pulling to pieces the empire which he had established, the Romans and Carthaginians proceeded in their attempts to enslave the nations of the West. The Romans, ever engaged in war, conquered one city and state after another, till about the year 233 before Christ, when they had made themselves masters of almost the whole of Italy. During this time they had met with only a single check in their conquests, namely, the invasion of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. That ambitious and fickle prince had projected the conquest of Italy, which he fancied would be an easy achievement. Accordingly, in the year 271 before Christ, he entered that country, and maintained a war with the Romans for six years, till at last, being utterly defeated by Curius Dentatus, he was obliged to return humbled to his own country.

The Romans had no sooner made themselves masters of Italy, than they wanted only a pretence to carry their arms beyond it, and it was not long before this pretence was found. Being invited into Sicily to assist the Mamertines against Hiero king of Syracuse and the Carthaginians, they immediately commenced a war with the latter, which continued with the utmost fury for twenty-three years. The war ended greatly to the disadvantage of the Carthaginians, chiefly owing to the bad conduct of their generals, none of whom, Hamilcar Barcas alone excepted, seem to have been possessed of any military skill; and the state had suffered too many misfortunes before he entered upon the command, for him or any other to retrieve its fortunes at that time. The consequences of this war was the entire loss of Sicily; and soon afterwards the Romans seized on the island of Sardinia.

Hamilcar perceiving that in a short time Carthage must either conquer Rome, or Rome would conquer Carthage, betook himself of a method by which his country might become equal to the haughty republic by which it was threatened. This was by reducing all Spain, in which the Carthaginians had already considerable possessions, and from the mines of which they derived great advantages. He had, therefore, no sooner finished the war with the mercenaries, which succeeded that with the Romans, than he set about the conquest of Spain. This, however, he did not live to effect, though he had made great progress towards its accomplishment. His son Asdrubal continued the war with success, till at last the Romans, jealous of his progress, persuaded him to enter into a treaty with them, by which he engaged himself to make the river Iberus the boundary of his conquests. This treaty was probably never ratified by the senate of Carthage, nor, even if it had, would it have been regarded by Hannibal, who succeeded Asdrubal in the command, and had sworn eternal enmity with the Romans. The transactions of the second Punic war are amongst the most remarkable which the history of the world exhibits. Certain it is, that nothing can show more clearly the slight foundations upon which the greatest empires are built. We find the Romans, the nation most remarkable for their military skill, and who, for more than five hundred years, had been constantly victorious, unable to resist the efforts of a single man. At the same time we observe this man, though evidently the first general in the world, lost solely for want of timely support. In former times, the republic of Carthage had supplied her generals in Sicily with hundreds of thousands, though their enterprises were almost constantly unsuccessful; but now Hannibal, the conqueror of Italy, was obliged to abandon his design, merely for want of twenty or thirty thousand men. That degeneracy and infatuation which never fail to overwhelm a falling nation, or which are rather the causes of its fall, had now infected the counsels of Carthage; the supplies were denied; and the propitious moment was for ever lost. Neither was Carthage the only infatuated nation. Hannibal, whose prudence never forsook him either in prosperity or adversity, had, in the height of his good fortune, concluded an alliance with Philip, king of Macedonia. If that prince had sent an army to the assistance of the Carthaginians in Italy immediately after the battle of Cannae, there can be no doubt that the Romans would have been forced to accept of the peace which they so haughtily refused; and indeed this offer of peace, in the midst of so much success, is an instance of moderation which perhaps does more honour to the Carthaginian general than all the military exploits which he had performed. Philip, however, could not be roused from his indolence, nor made to perceive that his own ruin was connected with that of Carthage. The Romans having now made themselves masters of Sicily, recalled Marcellus, with his victorious army, to be employed against Hannibal; and the Carthaginian armies being unsupported in Italy, which they were no longer in a condition to conquer, were recalled into Africa, which the Romans had already invaded. The southern nations seem to have been as blind to their own interest as the northern. They ought to have seen that it was necessary for them to preserve Carthage from being destroyed; but instead of this, Masinissa, king of Numidia, formed an alliance with the Romans, and by his means Hannibal was overcome at the battle of Zama, which terminated the second Punic war, in the year 188 before our era.

The event of the second Punic war determined the fate of almost all the other nations in the world. All this time, indeed, the empires of Egypt, Syria, and Greece, had been accelerating their own ruin by mutual wars and intestine divisions. The Syrian empire was now governed by Antiochus the Great, who seems to have had little right to such a title. His empire, though diminished by the defection of the Parthians, was still very powerful; and to him Hannibal applied, after he had been obliged to leave his own country. Antiochus, however, had not sufficient judgment to discern the necessity of following that great man's advice; nor could the Carthaginians be prevailed on to contribute their assistance against the nation which was soon, without any provocation, to destroy them. The pretence for war on the part of the Romans was, that Antiochus refused to declare his Greek subjects in Asia free and independent states; a requisition which neither the Romans nor any other nation had a right to make. The result was, that Antiochus was everywhere defeated, and forced to conclude a peace upon very disadvantageous terms.

In Europe, the course of events was nearly the same. The states of Greece, weary of the tyranny of the Macedonians, entered into a resolution to recover their liberties. For this purpose was framed the famous Achaean League; but as they could not agree amongst themselves, they at last came to the imprudent determination of calling in the Romans to defend them against Philip king of Macedonia. This produced a war, in which the Romans were victorious. The Macedonians, however, were still formidable; and as the intention of the Romans to enslave the whole world could no longer be doubted, Perseus, the successor of Philip, renewed the war. But through his own cowardice he lost a decisive engagement, and with it his kingdom, which submitted to the Romans in 167 before Christ.

Macedonia being thus conquered, the next step was utterly to exterminate the Carthaginians, whose republic, notwithstanding the many disasters which had befallen it, was still formidable. It is true, the Carthaginians had given no offence; nay, they even made the most abject submissions to the republic of Rome. But all this was not sufficient. War was declared a third time against that unfortunate state; and as there was now no Hannibal to command their armies, the city was utterly destroyed, 146 before Christ. The same year the Romans put an end to the liberties they had pretended to grant the cities of Greece, by the entire destruction of Corinth.

After the death of Antiochus the Great, the affairs of Syria and Egypt proceeded from bad to worse. The degenerate princes who filled the thrones of those empires, regarding only their own pleasures, either spent their time in oppressing their subjects, or in attempting to deprive each other of their dominions, and thus became a more easy prey to the Romans. So far indeed were they from taking any means to secure themselves against the overgrown power of the republic, that the kings both of Syria and Egypt sometimes applied to the Romans as protectors. Their downfall, however, did not take place within the period of which we now treat. The only other transaction which makes any considerable figure in the Syrian empire is the oppression of the Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes. After their return from the Babylonian captivity, they continued in subjection to the Persians till the time of Alexander. From that epoch they were alternately subject to the kings of Egypt or Syria, as the fortune of either happened to prevail. Egypt being reduced to a low ebb by Antiochus Epiphanes, the Jews fell under his dominion; and being severely treated by him, imprudently showed some signs of joy on a report of his death. This brought him against them with a powerful army; and, in 170 before Christ, he took Jerusalem by storm, committing the most horrid cruelties on the inhabitants, insomuch that they were obliged to hide themselves in caverns and in holes of the rocks to avoid his fury. Their religion was totally abolished, their temple profaned, and an image of Jupiter Olympus set up on the altar of burnt-offerings; a profanation which is thought to be the "abomination of desolation" mentioned by the prophet Daniel. This revolution, however, was not of long continuance. In the year 167 before Christ, Mattathias restored the true worship in most of the cities of Judea; and in 168 the temple was purified, and the worship there restored by Judas Maccabeus. This was followed by a long series of wars between the Syrians and Jews, in which the latter were almost always victorious.

The beginning of the seventh period presents us with a view of the ruins of the Greek empire in the declining states of Syria and Egypt, both of them much circumscribed in limits. The empire of Syria at first comprehended all Asia as far as the river Indus, and beyond it; but in 312 most of the Indian provinces were ceded by Seleucus to Sandrocottus, or Androccottus, a native, who in return gave him five hundred elephants. Of the empire of Sandrocottus we know nothing further than that he subdued all the countries between the Indus and the Ganges; and that from this time the greater part of India became independent of the Syro-Macedonian princes. In 250 before Christ, however, the empire sustained a much greater loss by the revolt of the Parthians and Bactrians from Antiochus Theus. The former could not be subdued; and as they held in subjection the vast tract which now goes under the name of Persia, their defection must be looked on as an irreparable loss. Whether any part of their country was afterwards recovered by the kings of Egypt or Syria is not very certain; nor is it of much consequence, since we are assured that in the beginning of the seventh period, or about a century and a half before Christ, the Greek empires of Syria and Egypt were reduced by the loss of India, Persia, Armenia, Pontus, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and other countries. The general state of the world in 146 before Christ, therefore, was as follows: In Asia were the empires of India, Parthia, and Syria, with the lesser states of Armenia, Pontus, and others above mentioned; to which must be added that of Arabia, which during the sixth period had grown into some consequence, and had maintained its independence from the days of Ishmael the son of Abraham. In Africa were the kingdoms of Egypt and Ethiopia; the Carthaginian territories, now subject to the Romans; and the kingdoms of Numidia, Mauritania, and Getulia, ready to be swallowed up by the same ambitious and insatiable power, now that Carthage, which served as a barrier, had been overthrown. To the south lay some unknown and barbarous nations, secure, by reason of their situation and insignificance, rather than by their strength or distance from Rome. In Europe we find none to oppose the progress of the Roman arms except the Gauls, Germans, and some Spanish nations, all of whom were brave indeed, but, through want of military skill, incapable of contending with such masters in the art of war as the Romans.

The Spaniards had indeed been subdued by Scipio Africanus in the time of the second Punic war; but in 155 before Christ they revolted, and, under the conduct of one Viriatus, who had previously been a robber, held out for a long time against all the armies Rome could send against them. The city of Numantia defied the whole Roman power for six years longer, till at last the inhabitants, reduced to extremity by famine, set fire to their houses, and perished in the flames, or killed one another, so that not one remained to grace the triumph of the conqueror. This calamitous consummation produced a temporary tranquillity in Spain. About the same time Attalus, king of Pergamus, having left by will the Roman people his heirs, they immediately seized on his kingdom, and reduced it to a Roman province, under the name of Asia Proper. Thus they continued to enlarge their dominions on every side, without the least regard to justice, to the means they employed, or to the miseries they brought upon the conquered nations. In 122 before Christ the Balearic Islands, now called Majorca, Minorca, and Iviça, were subdued, and the inhabitants exterminated; and soon afterwards several of the nations beyond the Alps were obliged to submit.

In Africa the crimes of Jugurtha soon afforded this ambitious republic an opportunity of conquering the kingdoms of Numidia and Mauritania; and indeed this is almost the only war in which we find the Romans engaged where their pretensions had the least colour of justice, though in no case whatever could a nation show more degeneracy than the Romans did upon this occasion. The particulars of this war are related under other heads. The event was the total reduction of Numidia, about the year 105 before Christ; but Mauritania and Getulia preserved their liberty for some time longer.

In the East, the empire of Syria continued daily to decline, and thus the Jews not only had an opportunity of recovering their liberty, but even of becoming as powerful, or at least of extending their dominions as far, as in the days of David and Solomon. This declining empire was still further reduced by the civil dissensions between the two brothers Antiochus Grypus and Antiochus Cyzicus, during which the cities of Tyre, Sidon, Ptolemais, and Gaza, declared themselves independent; and in other cities tyrants started up who refused allegiance to any foreign power. This happened about a century before the Christian era, and seventeen years afterwards the whole was reduced by Tigranes, king of Armenia. But he was defeated by the Romans, who reduced Syria to the state of a province of their empire. The kingdom of Armenia itself, with those of Pontus, Cappadocia, and Bithynia, soon shared the same fate; Pontus, the most powerful of them all, being subdued about 64 before Christ. About this time the kingdom of Judaea was also reduced under the power of the same people. This state owed the loss of its liberty to the same cause which had ruined several others, namely, calling in the Romans as arbitrators between two contending parties. The two sons of Alexander Janneus, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, contended for the kingdom; and Aristobulus, being defeated by the party of Hyrcanus, applied to the Romans. Pompey the Great, who acted as ultimate judge in this affair, decided it against Aristobulus, but at the same time deprived Hyrcanus of all power as a king, and even refused him permission to assume the regal title, or to extend his territory beyond the ancient borders of Judaea. He also obliged Hyrcanus to give up all those cities in Coësosyria and Phoenicia which had been gained by his predecessors, and added them to the newly-acquired Roman province of Syria.

Thus the Romans became masters of the countries of the East, from the Mediterranean Sea to the borders of Parthia. In the West, however, the Gauls still enjoyed liberty, and the Spanish nations bore the Roman yoke with the greatest impatience. The Gauls infested the territories of the republic by frequent incursions; and though several attempts had been made to subdue them, these always proved insufficient till the time of Julius Caesar. By him, however, they were totally reduced, from the river Rhine to the Pyrenean Mountains, and many of their tribes or branches were almost exterminated. He carried his arms also into Germany and the southern parts of Britain; but in neither of these attempts did he effect any permanent conquests. The civil wars between him and Pompey gave him an opportunity of seizing on the kingdom of Mauritania, and those parts of Numidia which had been allowed to retain their liberty. The kingdom of Egypt alone remained; but to this nothing belonged excepting the country properly so called. Cyrenaica was bequeathed by will to the Romans in the year 58 before Christ; and about the same time the island of Cyprus was seized by them, without any pretence except a desire of possessing the treasure of the king. The kingdom of Egypt continued for some time longer at liberty; but this must in some measure be ascribed to the internal dissensions of the republic, more especially to the amours of Pompey, Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony, with the famous Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. The battle of Actium, however, determined at one blow the fate of Antony, Cleopatra, and Egypt, which last was reduced to a Roman province about nine years before our era.

Whilst the Romans thus employed every means to reduce the world to subjection, they were making one another feel the same miseries at home which they inflicted upon other nations abroad. The first civil dissensions took their rise at the siege of Numantia, in Spain, which, as we have already observed, resisted the whole power of Rome for six years. On one occasion thirty thousand Romans fled before four thousand Numantines. Twenty thousand were killed in the battle, and the remaining ten thousand were so shut up that they had no means of escape. In this extremity they were obliged to negotiate with the enemy, and a peace was concluded upon the conditions, first, that the Numantines should suffer the Romans to retire unmolested; and, secondly, that Numantia should maintain its independence, and be reckoned amongst the allies of Rome. But the Roman senate, with unexampled injustice and ingratitude, broke this treaty, and in return ordered the commander of their army to be delivered up to the Numantines; but they refused to accept of him unless his army was delivered along with him, and the war was renewed, and ended as already related. The fate of Numantia, however, was soon revenged. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, brother-in-law of Scipio Africanus the second, had been the chief promoter of the peace with the Numantines already mentioned, and of consequence had been in danger of being delivered up to them along with the commander-in-chief. This disgrace he never forgot or forgave; and, in order to revenge himself, undertook the cause of the plebeians against the patricians, by whom the former were greatly oppressed. He began with reviving an old law, which had enacted that no Roman citizen should possess more than five hundred acres (jugera) of land; and he designed to distribute the excess amongst those who had no lands, and to reimburse the rich out of the public treasury. This law met with great opposition, produced many tumults, and at last ended in the death of Gracchus and the persecution of his friends, several hundreds of whom were put to death in the most cruel manner, without any form of law.

But the disturbances did not cease with the death of Gracchus. New contests ensued on account of the Sempronian law, and particularly giving to the Italian allies the privilege of Roman citizens, which not only produced great commotions in the city, but occasioned a general revolt of the states of Italy against the republic of Rome. This rebellion was not quelled without great difficulty; and in the mean time the city was deluged with blood by the contending factions of Sylla and Marius, the former of whom sided with the patricians, and the latter with the plebeians. These disturbances ended in the perpetual dictatorship of Sylla, about 80 years before Christ.

From this time we may date the loss of Roman liberty; for though Sylla resigned his dictatorship two years afterwards, the succeeding contests between Caesar and Pompey proved equally fatal to the republic. These contests were decided by the battle of Pharsalia, 43 before Christ, which rendered Caesar in effect master of the empire. Without loss of time he then passed into Africa, totally defeated the republican army in that continent, reduced the country of Mauritania to a Roman province, and completed the Roman conquests in those parts. His victory over the sons of Pompey at Munda, 40 before Christ, secured him from any further apprehensions of a rival. Being therefore sole master of the Roman empire, and having all the power in his hands, he projected great schemes, tending, according to some, not less to the happiness than to the glory of his country; but he was assassinated in the senate-house, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and 39 before Christ.

Without investigating the political justice of this action, or the motives of the perpetrators, it is impossible not to regret the death of this great man, when we contemplate the designs which he is said to have formed. Nor is it possible to justify even the most virtuous of the conspirators, when we consider the obligations under which they lay to him they slew; and as to the measure itself; even in the view of expediency, it seems to be generally condemned. But, from the transactions which had long preceded, as well as those which immediately followed, the murder of Caesar, it is evident that Rome was incapable of preserving its liberty, and that the people had become unfit for being free. The efforts of Brutus and Cassius were therefore unsuccessful, and ended in their own destruction, as well as in that of great numbers of their followers, at the battle of Philippi. The defeat of the republicans was followed by numberless disturbances, proscriptions, and murders, till at last Octavius, having cut off all who had the courage to oppose him, and finally obtained the superiority over his rivals by the victory at Actium, put an end to the republic in the year 27 before Christ.

The destruction of the Roman commonwealth proved advantageous to the few nations of the world who still retained their liberty. That outrageous desire of conquest which had so long marked the Roman character in a great measure ceased; there was now another way of satisfying the desires of ambitious men, namely, by courting the favour of the emperor. After the final reduction of the Spaniards, therefore, and the conquests of the countries of Massia, Pannonia, and some others adjacent to the Roman territories, and which in a manner seemed naturally to belong to them, the empire enjoyed for some time a profound peace.

The only remarkable transactions which took place during the remainder of the period of which we treat, were the conquest of Britain by Claudius and Agricola, and the destruction of Jerusalem by Vespasian and Titus. The war with the Jews began A.D. 67, and was occasioned by their obstinately claiming the city of Caesarea, which the Ro- mans had added to the province of Syria. It ended with the destruction of their city and nation, in 73; and since that time they have never been able to assemble as a dis- tinct people. The southern parts of Britain were totally subdued by Agricola about ten years afterwards.

In the 98th year of the Christian era, Trajan was creat- ed emperor of Rome; and being a man of great valour and experience in war, he carried the Roman conquests to their utmost extent. Having conquered the Dacians, a Ger- man nation beyond the Danube, who had proved extreme- ly troublesome, he turned his arms eastward; reduced all Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and Assyria; and having taken Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthian empire, appointed a king, which he thought would be a proper method of keep- ing the warlike population in subjection. After this he proposed to return to Italy, but died by the way; and with his reign the seventh general period above mentioned con- cluded.

The beginning of the eighth period presents us with a view of one vast empire, in which almost all the nations of the world as then known were swallowed up. This empire comprehended the best part of Britain, all Spain, France, the Netherlands, Italy, part of Germany, Egypt, Barbary, Balkulgerid, Turkey in Europe, Turkey in Asia, and Per- sia. The state of India was at this time nearly unknown. The Chinese lived in a remote part of the world, unheard of and unmolested by the western nations who struggled for the empire of the world. The northern parts of Eu- rope and Asia were filled with barbarous nations, already formidable to the Romans, and who were destined soon to become more so. The vast empire of Rome, however, had no sooner attained its utmost degree of power, than, like those which had preceded it, it began to decline. The provinces of Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria almost instantly revolted, and were abandoned by Hadrian, the successor of Trajan in the empire. The Parthians hav- ing recovered their liberty, proved formidable enemies, and the barbarians of the northern parts of Europe conti- nued to increase in strength; whilst the Romans, weakened by intestine divisions, became daily less able to resist them. At different times, however, some warlike emperors arose, who put a stop to the incursions of these barbarians; and, about the year 215, the Parthian empire was totally over- thrown by the Persians, who had long been subject to it. But this revolution proved of little advantage to the Romans. The Persians were enemies still more troublesome than the Parthians had been; and though often defeated, they still continued to infest the empire on the east, as the barba- rous nations of Europe did on the north. In the year 260, the defeat and captivity of the Emperor Valerian by the Persians, with the disturbances which followed, threatened the empire with utter destruction. Thirty tyrants seiz- ed the government at once, and the barbarians pouring in on all sides in prodigious numbers, ravaged almost all the provinces of the empire. By the vigorous conduct of Clau- dius, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus, the empire was restored to its former lustre; but as the barbarians were only repulsed, and never thoroughly subdued, this proved merely a temporary relief; and, what was worse, the Roman soldiers, growing impatient of all restraint, commonly mur- dered those emperors who attempted to revive the ancient military discipline, which alone could insure victory. Un- der Diocletian the disorders were so great, that, though the government was held by two persons, they found them- selves unable to bear the weight of it, and therefore assum- ed two other partners in the empire. Thus was the Ro- man empire divided into four parts; a division which is considered by all historians to have been productive of the greatest evils. For as each of these four sovereigns had as many officers, both civil and military, and the same num- ber of forces which had been maintained by the state when governed only by one emperor, the people were unable to pay the sums necessary for supporting them. Hence the taxes and imposts were increased beyond measure, the in- habitants in several provinces were reduced to beggary, and the land was left untilled for want of labourers. An end was put to these evils when the empire was again unit- ed under Constantine the Great; but in 330 a mortal blow was given to it by removing the imperial seat to Byzantium, now Constantinople, and making it co-ordinate with Rome. The introduction and establishment of Christianity, already corrupted with the grossest superstitions, proved also a grievous detriment to the empire. Instead of that steady and obstinate valour in which the Romans had so long been accustomed to put their trust, they now imagined themselves secured by signs of the Cross, and other exter- nal symbols of the Christian religion, which they used as a kind of magical incantations; and hence proceeded in some measure the great revolution which took place in the next period.

The ninth general period includes the decline and fall Ninth pe- of the western empire. That empire, which formerly oc-riod. cupied almost the whole world, was now weakened by di- vision and surrounded by enemies. On the east the Per- sians, on the north the Scythians, Sarmatians, Goths, and other barbarous nations, watched all occasions to break into it; and though they miscarried in their attempts, this was owing more to their own barbarity than to the strength of their enemies. The devastations committed by these barbarians, when they made their incursions, are incredi- ble in themselves, and the relation is shocking to human na- ture. Some authors seem much inclined to favour them, and even to insinuate that barbarity and ignorant ferocity were their chief, if not their only defects. But from their history it appears, that not only barbarity and the most shock- ing cruelty, but the highest degree of avarice, perfidy, and disregard to the most solemn promises, were to be number- ed amongst their vices. It was ever a sufficient reason for them to make an attack, that they thought their enemies could not resist them. Their only reason for making peace, or for keeping it when made, was because their enemies were too strong; and if they gained a victory, this was, in their estimation, sufficient to justify the most horrid mas- sacres, rapes, and all manner of crimes. The Romans, de- generate as they had become, were yet esteemed much better than these savages; and therefore we find that not a single province of the empire would submit to the bar- barians whilst the Romans could possibly defend it.

Some of the Roman emperors indeed withstood this in- vasion of savages; but as the latter grew daily more nu- merous, and the Romans continued to weaken themselves by their intestine divisions, they were at last obliged to take large bodies of barbarians into their pay, and to teach them military discipline, in order to drive away their coun- trymen, or others who had invaded the empire. This pol- icy at last proved its total destruction. In 476, the barba- rians who had served in the Roman armies, and were digni- fied with the title of "allies," demanded the third part of the lands of Italy as the reward of their services; but meeting with a refusal, they revolted, and made themselves masters of the whole country, and of Rome itself, which from that time ceased to be even nominally the head of an empire.

This period exhibits a most unfavourable view of the western parts of the world. The Romans, from the height of grandeur, had sunk to the lowest slavery, and in fact were almost exterminated; the provinces which they for- merly governed were inhabited by human beings scarce- ly a degree above the brutes; every art, every science, was lost; and the savage conquerors were even in danger of starving for want of a sufficient knowledge of agriculture, having now no longer the means of supplying themselves by plunder and robbery. Britain had long been abandon- ed to the mercy of the Scots and the Picts; and in 450 the inhabitants had called to their assistance the Saxons, whom they soon found worse enemies than those against whom they had implored their aid. Spain was held by the Goths and Suevians; Africa, that is, Barbary and Beldugerid, was occupied by the Vandals; the Burgundians, Goths, Franks, and Alans, had erected several small states in Gaul; and Italy was subjected to the Heruli under Odoacer, who had assumed the title of king of Italy. In the East, indeed, matters wore an aspect somewhat more favourable. The Roman empire continued to live in that of Constantinople, which was still extensive. It comprehended all Asia Minor and Syria, as far as Persia; in Africa, the kingdom of Egypt; and in Europe the territory of Greece. The Persians were powerful, and rivalled the emperors of Constantinople; and beyond them lay the Indians, Chinese, and other nations, who, unheeded by the inhabitants of the more western parts, enjoyed unmolested peace and liberty.

The Constantinopolitan empire continued to decline by reason of the continual wars in which it was engaged with the Persians, Bulgarians, and other barbarous nations; and to this also superstition and relaxation of military discipline largely contributed. The Persian empire likewise declined from similar causes, together with the intestine broils, from which it was seldom free. The history of the eastern part of the world during this period, therefore, consists only of the wars between the two empires, which were productive of no other consequence than that of weakening both, and rendering them a more easy prey to those enemies who were long to erect an empire almost as extensive as that of the Greeks or Romans.

Amongst the western nations, revolutions succeeded one another with unprecedented rapidity. The Heruli under Odoacer were driven out by the Goths under Theodoric. The Goths again were expelled by the Romans; and, whilst the two parties were contending, both were attacked by the Franks, who carried off an immense booty. The Romans were in their turn expelled by the Goths. The Franks again invaded Italy, and made themselves masters of the province of Venetia; but at last the superior fortune of the emperor of Constantinople prevailed, and the Goths were finally subdued in 553. Nares, the conqueror of the Goths, governed Italy as a province of the eastern empire till the year 568, when Longinus his successor made considerable alterations. The Italian provinces had, ever since the time of Constantine the Great, been governed by consuls, correctores, and praesides, no alteration having been made either by the Roman emperors, or even by the Gothic kings. But Longinus, being invested with absolute power by Justinian, suppressed these magistrates, and, instead of them, placed in each city of note a governor, whom he distinguished with the title of duke. The city of Rome was not more honoured than any other; for Longinus, having abolished the very name of senate and consuls, appointed a duke of Rome as well as of other cities. For himself he reserved the title of exarch; and as he resided at Ravenna, his government was styled the exarchate of Ravenna. But whilst he was establishing this new empire, the greater part of Italy was conquered by the Lombards.

In France a considerable revolution also took place. In 487, Clovis, the founder of the French monarchy, possessed himself of all the countries situated between the Rhine and the Loire; and, by force or treachery, he conquered all the petty kingdoms which had been erected in that country. His dominions had been divided, united, and divided again; and were on the point of being again united, when the followers of Mahammed began to make a figure in the world, and to threaten all the countries of the West.

In Spain, the Visigoths had erected a kingdom ten years before the conquest of Rome by the Heruli. This kingdom they had extended to the eastward, about the same time that Clovis was extending his conquests to the westward; so that the two kingdoms were separated only by the Loire. The consequence of this approximation was an immediate war. But Clovis proved victorious, and, having subdued the greater part of the country of the Visigoths, put a final stop to their conquests on that side.

Another kingdom had been founded in the western part of Spain by the Suevi, a considerable time before the Romans were finally expelled from that country. But in 409 this kingdom was entirely subverted by Theodoric king of the Goths; and the Suevi were so pent up in a small district of Lusitania and Galicia, that it seemed impossible for them ever to recover the ground they had lost. During the above-mentioned period, however, whilst the attention of the Goths was turned another way, they found means again to erect themselves into an independent state, and to become masters of considerably extended territories. But this success proved of short duration. In 584 the Goths attacked them, and having totally destroyed their power, became masters of all Spain, excepting a small part which still owned subjection to the emperors of Constantinople. Of this part, however, the Goths also possessed themselves in the year 623, which concludes the ninth general period.

Africa, properly so called, had changed masters three times during this period. The Vandals had expelled the Romans, and erected an independent kingdom, which was at length overturned by the emperors of Constantinople; and from them the greater part of it was taken by the Goths in the year 620.

At the commencement of the tenth general period, which begins with the flight of Mahammed in the year 622, whence his followers date their era called the Hijra, we see everything prepared for the great revolution which was now about to take place. The Roman empire in the west was annihilated; the Persian empire and that of Constantinople were weakened by mutual wars and intestine divisions; the Indians and other eastern nations, unaccustomed to war, were ready to fall a prey to the first invader; and the southern parts of Europe were in a distracted and barbarous state; whilst the inhabitants of Arabia, from their earliest origin accustomed to war and plunder, and now united by the most fanatical superstition and enthusiastic desire of conquest, were, like a pent-up flood, ready to overwhelm the rest of the world. The northern nations of Europe and Asia, which became so formidable in after times, were at present unknown to their southern neighbours; and in no quarter of the globe was there any power capable of opposing the conquests of the Arabs. With amazing celerity, therefore, they overran all Syria, Palestine, Persia, Bukharia, and India, extending their conquests farther to the eastward than Alexander, and carrying all before them. In the west, their empire extended over Egypt, Barbary, and Spain, together with the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, Minorca, and the islands of the Archipelago; nor were the coasts of Italy itself free from their incursions, which are even said to have reached as far as Iceland. But at last this great empire began, like others, to decline. Its ruin was sudden, and mainly owing to its internal divisions. Mahammed had not taken care to establish the apostleship in his family, or to give any particular directions about a successor. The consequence of this was, that the caliphate, or succession to the Prophet, was seized by many usurpers in different parts of the empire; whilst the true caliphs, who resided at Bagdad, gradually lost all power, and were regarded only as a kind of high priests. Of these divisions the Turks took advantage to establish their au- but as they embraced the same religion with the Arabs, and were filled with the same enthusiastic desire of conquest, it is of little consequence to distinguish between them, for it signified nothing to the world whether the Turks or Saracens were the conquerors, since both were equally cruel, barbarous, ignorant, and superstitious.

Whilst the barbarians of the East were thus grasping at the empire of the world, great disturbances happened amongst the hardly less barbarous nations of the West. Superstition seems to have been the ruling principle in both cases. The Saracens and Turks conquered for the glory of God, or of his prophet Mahommed and his successors; the western nations professed an equal regard for the divine glory, which, however, was only to be perceived in the respect they paid to the pope and the clergy. Ever since the establishment of Christianity by Constantine, the bishops of Rome had been gradually extending their power, and attempting not only to render themselves independent, but even to assume an authority over the emperors themselves. The destruction of the empire was so far from weakening their power, that it afforded them opportunities of greatly extending it, and becoming judges of the sovereigns of Italy themselves, whose barbarity and ignorance prompted them to submit to their decisions. During all this time, however, they themselves had been in subjection to the emperors of Constantinople; but upon the decline of that empire, they found means to get themselves exempted from this subjection. The principal authority in the city of Rome was then engrossed by the bishop, though of right it belonged to the duke appointed by the exarch of Ravenna. But though they had now little to fear from the eastern emperors, they were in great danger from the ambition of the Lombards, who aimed at the conquest of all Italy. This aspiring people the bishops of Rome determined to check; and therefore, in 726, when Luitprand king of the Lombards had taken Ravenna and expelled the exarch, the pope undertook to restore the latter. For this purpose he applied to the Venetians, who are now first mentioned in history as a state of any consequence; and by their means the exarch was restored. Some time before this a quarrel had taken place between the pope, Gregory III, and Leo, emperor of the East, about the worship of images. Leo, who in the midst of so much barbarism had still preserved some share of common sense and reason, reprobed in the strongest terms the worship of images, and commanded them to be destroyed throughout his dominions. But the pope, whose cause was favoured by the most absurd superstitions, and by these alone, refused to obey the emperor's commands. The exarch of Ravenna, as a subject of the emperor, was ordered to force the pope to yield a compliance, and even to seize or assassinate him in the event of a refusal. This excited the pious zeal of Luitprand to assist the pope, whom he had formerly designed to subdue. The exarch was first excommunicated, and then torn in pieces by the enraged multitude; the duke of Naples shared the same fate; a vast number of the Iconoclasts, or Image-breakers, as they were called, were slaughtered without mercy; and, to complete all, the subjects of the exarchate, at the instigation of the pope, renounced their allegiance to the emperor.

Leo was no sooner informed of this revolt than he ordered a powerful army to be raised, in order to reduce the rebels, and to take vengeance on the pope. Alarmed at these warlike preparations, Gregory looked round for some power upon which he might depend for protection. The Lombards were possessed of sufficient force, but they were too near and too dangerous neighbours to be trusted; the Venetians, though zealous Catholics, were as yet unable to withstand the force of the empire; and Spain was overrun by the Saracens. The French seemed, therefore, the only people to whom it was advisable to apply for aid, as they were able to oppose the emperor, and were likewise enemies to his edict. Charles Martel, who at that time governed France as mayor of the palace, was therefore applied to; but before a treaty could be concluded, all the parties concerned were removed by death. Constantine Copronymus, who succeeded Leo at Constantinople, not only persisted in the opposition to image-worship begun by his predecessor, but also prohibited the invocation of saints. Zachary, who succeeded Gregory III in the pontificate, proved as zealous an adversary as his predecessor. Pepin, who succeeded Charles Martel in the sovereignty of France, proved as powerful a friend to the pope as his father had been. The people of Rome had nothing to fear from Constantinople, and therefore drove out all the emperor's officers. The Lombards, awed by the power of France, for some time allowed the pope to govern in peace the dominions of the exarchate; but in 752, Astolphus king of Lombardy not only reduced the greater part of the pope's territories, but threatened the city of Rome itself. Upon this an application was made to Pepin, who obliged Astolphus to restore the places he had taken, and gave them to the pope, or, as he said, to St Peter. The Greek emperor, to whom they of right belonged, remonstrated to no purpose. The pope from that time became possessed of considerable territories in Italy, which, from the manner of their donation, go under the name of the Patrimony of St Peter. It was not, however, before the year 774 that the pope was fully secured in these new dominions. This was accomplished when the kingdom of the Lombards was totally destroyed by Charlemagne, who was then crowned king of Italy. Soon after this, that monarch made himself master of all the Low Countries, Germany, and part of Hungary; and in the year 800 he was solemnly crowned by the pope, Emperor of the West.

Thus the world was once more divided into three great empires. That of the Arabs or Saracens extended from the river Ganges to Spain, comprehending almost all those parts of Asia and Africa which were known to Europeans, except the kingdoms of China and Japan. The eastern Roman empire was reduced to Greece, Asia Minor, and the provinces adjoining to Italy. The empire of the West, under Charlemagne, comprehended France, Germany, and the greater part of Italy. The Saxons, however, as yet possessed Britain unmolested by external enemies, though the seven kingdoms erected by them were engaged in perpetual contests. The Venetians also enjoyed a nominal independence, though their situation rendered them dependent upon the great powers which surrounded them. But of all the European potentates, the popes certainly exercised the greatest authority; for even Charlemagne himself condescended to accept the crown from their hands, and his successors made them the arbitrators of their differences.

Matters, however, did not long continue in this state. The empire of Charlemagne, upon the death of his son Louis, was divided amongst his three children. Endless disputes and wars ensued, till at last the sovereign power was seized by Hugh Capet in 987. The Saxon heptarchy was dissolved in 827, and the whole of England reduced under one head. The Danes and Normans now began to make depredations, and to infest the neighbouring states. The former conquered the English Saxons, and seized the government, but were in their turn expelled by the Normans in 1066. In Germany and Italy great disturbances arose out of the disputes between the popes and the emperors; and, if to all this we add the internal contests which sprung from the ambition of the powerful barons of every kingdom, some idea may be formed of these calamitous times. All Europe, nay, all the world, was one great field of battle; for the empire of the Ma- hommedans was not in a more settled state than that of the Europeans. Caliphs, sultans, emirs, and others, waged continual war in every quarter; new sovereignties every day sprung up, and were as quickly destroyed. In short, through the ignorance and barbarity with which the world was then overspread, it seemed in a manner impossible that the human race could long continue to exist; when happily the crusades, by directing the attention of the Europeans to a foreign object, forced them to suspend their domestic feuds.

The Crusades originated in the superstition of the two grand parties into which the world was at that time divided, namely, the Christians and Mahommedans. Both looked upon the small territory of Palestine, which they denominated the Holy Land, as an invaluable acquisition; for which no sum of money could be any equivalent; and both took the most unjustifiable methods to accomplish their objects. The superstition of Omar, the second caliph, had prompted him to invade this country, part of the territories of the Greek emperor, who had done him no injury; and now, when it had been so long under the subjection of the Mahommedans, a similar superstition prompted the pope to send an army for the recovery of Palestine. The crusaders accordingly poured forth in multitudes, like those with which the kings of Persia formerly invaded Greece; and their fate was in some respects similar.

At first, indeed, their impetuous valour carried everything before them, and they recovered all Palestine, Phenicia, and part of Syria, from the infidels; but their want of skill soon lost what their valour had obtained, and very few of the vast multitudes which had left Europe ever revisited their native lands. A second, a third, and other crusades, were preached, and attended with like success in both respects. Vast numbers took the cross, and repaired to the Holy Land, which they polluted with the most abominable massacres and treacheries, and from which very few of them ever returned. In the third crusade embarked Richard I. of England, who seems to have been the best general that ever went into the East; but even his valour and skill were not sufficient to repair the faults of his companions, and he was obliged to return after having entirely defeated his antagonists, and been within sight of Jerusalem. See the article Crusades.

But whilst the Christians and Mahommedans were thus surreptitiously contending for a small territory in the western parts of Asia, the nations in the more easterly parts were threatened with total extermination. Genghiz Khan, the greatest as well as the most bloody conqueror that ever existed, now made his appearance. The rapidity of his conquests seemed to emulate those of Alexander the Great, and the cruelties which he committed were altogether unparalleled. It is worth observing, that Genghiz Khan and all his followers were neither Christians nor Mahommedans, but strict deists. For a long time even the sovereign had not heard of a temple, nor of any particular place on earth appropriated by the Deity to himself; and treated the notion with ridicule when it was first mentioned to him.

The Moguls, over whom Genghiz Khan assumed the sovereignty, were a people of Eastern Tartary, divided into a great number of petty governments, as they are at this day, but who owned subjection to one sovereign, whom they called Yung Khan, or the Great Khan. Temujin, afterwards Genghiz Khan, was one of these petty princes; but being unjustly deprived of the greater part of his inheritance at the age of thirteen, he could not recover it till he arrived at that of forty. This corresponds with the year 1201, when he totally reduced the rebels, and, as a specimen of his lenity, caused seventy of their chiefs to be thrown into as many caldrons of boiling water. In 1202 he defeated and killed Yung Khan himself, known to the Europeans by the name of Prester John of Asia; and possessing himself of his vast dominions, became thenceforth altogether irresistible. In 1206, having still continued to enlarge his dominions, he was declared khan of the Moguls and Tartars, and took upon him the title of Genghiz Khan, or The Great Khan of Khans. This was followed by the reduction of the kingdom of Hya in China, Tangut, Kitay, Turkestan, Karazm (the kingdom of Gazna, founded by Mahmud Gazni), Great Bukharin, Persia, and part of India; all of which vast regions were reduced in twenty-six years. The devastations and slaughters with which these conquests were accomplished are unparalleled, no fewer than 14,470,000 persons being computed to have been massacred by Genghiz Khan during the last twenty-two years of his reign. In the beginning of 1227 he died, thereby freeing the world from a most bloody tyrant. His successors completed the conquest of China and Korea, but were foiled in their attempts on Cochin-China, Tong-king, and Japan. On the western side the Tartar dominions were not much enlarged till the time of Hulaku, who conquered Media, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Syria, Georgia, Armenia, and almost all Asia Minor; putting an end to the empire of the Saracens by the taking of Bagdad in 1258.

The empire of Genghiz Khan shared the fate of all others. Being far too extensive to be governed by one head, it split into a multitude of small kingdoms, such as had existed before his time. All the princes of these, however, owned allegiance to the family of Genghiz Khan till the time of Timur Beg, or Tamerlane. The Turks, in the mean time, urged forward by the inundation of Tartars, who poured in from the East, were forced upon the remains of the Greek empire; and, at the time of Tamerlane above mentioned, they had almost confined this once mighty empire within the walls of Constantinople.

In the year 1335 the family of Genghiz Khan having become extinct in Persia, a long civil war ensued, during which Timur Beg, one of the petty princes among whom the Tartar dominions were divided, found means to aggrandise himself in a manner similar to that in which Genghiz Khan had done about a hundred and fifty years before. Genghiz Khan, indeed, was the model whom he proposed to imitate; but it must be allowed that Timur was more merciful, if indeed the word can be applied to such inhuman tyrants. The plan on which Genghiz Khan had conducted his expeditions was that of total extermination. For some time he utterly extirpated the inhabitants of those places which he conquered, designing to people them anew with his Moguls; and, in consequence of this resolution, he employed his army in beheading a hundred thousand prisoners at once. Timur's cruelty, on the other hand, seldom went farther than the pounding of three or four thousand people in large mortars, or building them amongst bricks and mortar into a wall. We must observe, however, that Timur was not a deist, but a Mahommedan, and conquered expressly for the purpose of spreading the Mahommedan religion; for the Moguls had now adopted all the superstitions and absurdities of Islamism. Thus the eastern part of the world was threatened anew with the most dreadful devastations, whilst the western nations were exhausting themselves in fruitless attempts to recover the Holy Land. The Turks were the only people who seem at this period to have been gathering strength, and who, by their perpetual encroachments, threatened to swallow up the western nations, as the Tartars had done those of the East.

In 1362 Timur invaded Bukharia, which he reduced in five years, and proceeded in his conquests, though not with the same celerity as Genghiz Khan, till the year 1387, when he had subdued all Persia, Armenia, Georgia, Karazm, and the greater part of Tartary. After this he advanced westward, subduing all the countries as far as the Euphrates, made himself master of Bagdad, and even entered Russia, where he pillaged the city of Moscow. He then turned his arms to the East, and totally subdued India. In 1398 he invaded and reduced Syria; and having turned his arms against the Turks, he forced their sultan Bajazet to raise the siege of Constantinople. This brought on an engagement, in which Bajazet was entirely defeated and taken prisoner; an event which so broke the power of the Turks, that they were not for some time able to recover themselves. At last this great conqueror died in the year 1405, whilst on his way to conquer China, as Genghiz Khan had done before him.

The death of Timur was followed almost immediately by the dissolution of his empire, and most of the nations which he had conquered recovered their liberty. The Turks had now no further obstacle to their conquest of Constantinople. The western nations having exhausted themselves in the Holy Wars, as they were called, had now lost that insatiable thirst of conquest which so long possessed the minds of men. They had already made considerable advances in civilization, and begun to study the arts of peace. Gunpowder was invented, and its application to the purposes of war already known; and, although no invention threatened to be more destructive, perhaps none has ever proved more beneficial to the human race. By the use of fire-arms, nations are placed more on a level than they formerly were; and war is reduced to a regular system, which must be studied with as much care as any other science. Conquests are not now to be made with the same ease as formerly; the defensive force of states has been increased; and hence latterly the world has been much more peaceable and tranquil than in former ages. In 1453 the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks fixed that wandering people to one place; and though they long possessed extensive dominions in Europe, in Asia, and in Africa, an effectual stop has long been put to their further progress, and their power is now rapidly declining.

About this time, also, learning began to revive in Europe, where it had long been lost; and the invention of printing, which happened about the same time, rendered it in a manner impossible for barbarism ever again to recover its ancient empire. All the nations of the world, indeed, seem now to have laid aside much of their former ferocity; and, although wars have been by no means uncommon, these have not been carried on with such circumstances of atrocity and cruelty as before. Instead of attempting to enrich themselves by the spoils of their neighbours, mankind have in general applied themselves to commerce, the only true and durable source of riches. This soon produced improvements in navigation, which again led to the discovery of many regions formerly unknown. At the same time, the European powers, being at last thoroughly sensible that extensive conquests could never be permanent, applied themselves rather to provide for the security of the dominions which they already possessed, than to attempt the conquest of one another; and this produced the policy to which so much attention was subsequently paid, namely, that of preserving the balance of power in Europe, or preventing any one nation from acquiring sufficient strength to overpower another.

In the end of the fifteenth century the vast continent of America was discovered; and, almost at the same time, Vasco de Gama opened the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. The discovery of these new regions gave a new turn to the ambition of the Europeans. To enrich themselves by the gold and silver produced in these countries, or by traffic with the natives, now became the object of the more adventurous and enterprising. The Portuguese had the advantage of being the first discoverers of the countries in the eastern, and the Spaniards in the western hemisphere. Nor did the former neglect so favourable an opportunity of enriching themselves by commerce. Many settlements were formed by them in the East India islands, and on the continent; but their avarice and perfidious behaviour towards the natives proved at last the cause of their total expulsion. The Spaniards enriched themselves by the vast quantities of the precious metals imported from America, but which were only obtained by the most horrid massacres committed on the natives. The possessions of the Spaniards and Portuguese soon excited other European nations to make attempts to share with them in their treasures, by planting colonies in different parts of America, and effecting settlements in the East Indies; and thus the rage of war was in some measure transferred from Europe to these distant regions, whilst, after various contests, the British at last obtained a great superiority both in America and the East Indies.

The revolutions which took place in Europe during this period were, some of them, productive of important results. The total expulsion of the Moors and Saracens from Spain followed the capture of Granada in 1491. The fall of their capital terminated the long struggle which they had maintained to preserve a footing in the country to which they were so much attached; and the barbarous act which consummated their overthrow (an act highly characteristic of the age, though equally at variance with sound policy and common humanity) recoiled on the victorious perpetrators, by annihilating art, destroying industry, and extinguishing the light of science in the Peninsula. Spain felt severely the shock occasioned by the expulsion of this people, amongst whom knowledge and refinement had made considerable advances; but, on the other hand, the union of Aragon and Castile by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella formed the first step towards the consolidation under one monarchy, of the different petty kingdoms into which the country was divided, and laid the foundation of that power and ascendancy which, in less than a century, Spain acquired amongst the nations of Europe. Her advancement was rapid, and, in the brilliant reign of Charles V., she reached the zenith of her glory. But at this culminating point of splendour and power she was not destined to remain, even for a short period, stationary; for the sun of her glory, having passed his meridian, began immediately to decline in the quarter opposite to that in which he had arisen. Philip, the son and successor of the emperor, unable to wield the power which had been committed to his hands, misgave in all his enterprises; and whilst the spirit of the nation was humbled by his reverses, its resources were exhausted by the obstinate but ill-directed efforts made to repair them. The blow, however, which fell most heavily on the power of Spain was the revolt of the states of Holland. The Dutch, animated by that spirit of liberty which commerce always inspires, and driven to despair by a ruthless and implacable despotism, which attempted to impose its fetters on the mind as well as the body, rose in arms against their oppressors, and, after a sanguinary struggle, most unequal in its commencement but glorious in its results, they conquered their independence, and were, in the year 1609, declared a free people. Thus Spain lost the brightest jewel in its crown, freedom gained a new ally, and the despots of Europe were taught the important lesson that nothing is impossible for a brave people who have resolved, at all hazards, to establish their liberty.

In Asia nothing of importance had occurred since the capture of Constantinople by the Turks. Comparative tranquillity reigned throughout that vast continent, which had so often been the theatre of violent revolutions, sud- den conquests, and mushroom empires. Siberia had fallen under the dominion of Russia. To the southward, from Asia Minor to China and Corea, the Tartars roamed through their inhospitable deserts, formidable, indeed, by their numbers, but, from their disunion and barbarism, no longer capable of pouring in overwhelming masses on the nations of the East or of the West. The Turks possessed the western part of the continent, or Asia Minor, as far as the river Euphrates, which formed their boundary on the east. The Arabs were again confined within their own peninsula, which they possessed, as they had ever done, without owning subjection to any foreign power, in a state of wild independence. Contiguous to Turkey on the east lay Persia, now more restricted in its limits than before, but still powerful; whilst India, destined ere long to change masters, and yield to the supremacy of European arts and arms, slumbered under the dominion of the Mogul. Of the countries still farther to the east little was as yet known to the nations of the west; but an era of more active enterprise and daring adventure was rapidly approaching. The vast empire of China, occupying the most easterly portion of the Asiatic continent, enjoyed, as before, an almost entire immunity from revolution, or, if visited by a Tartar inroad, soon absorbed the invaders into its own vast mass, without the least disturbance to its laws, its institutions, or its government, or any other change than that of a dynasty or a name.

In Africa, the Turks possessed Egypt, which they had conquered in 1517, though by a very insecure tenure, and exercised a sort of nominal jurisdiction over the Barbary states, the principal of which, Algiers, has at length been subdued and converted into a troublesome colonial dependency of France. Of the barbarous nations who occupied the interior little or nothing was as yet known. On the western coast the British and Portuguese had established settlements; and the southern extremity was occupied by the Dutch, who were at length dispossessed by the British, when the latter found it necessary, for the security of their power in India, to occupy that advanced position in the Southern Ocean. The eastern coasts remained almost wholly unknown; whilst the Asiatic and African islands were either possessed by Europeans, or inhabited by savage tribes.

The European nations, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, were Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey in Europe, and in the north and east Germany, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. Of these, Russia, though the most barbarous, was nevertheless, in point of territory and population, by far the most considerable; but the situation of that power, at a distance from the centre of European policy and civilization, the poverty of its resources, the unsettled nature of its government, the rude and sluggish character of its population, immersed in profound ignorance and grovelling superstition, and, above all, its state of political isolation, rendered it in no respect formidable to other nations, and, in fact, made it be, in a great measure, overlooked in adjusting the balance of power in Europe. The kingdom of Poland, which had existed for upwards of six centuries, proved a barrier between Russia and Germany; it formed, as it were, the frontier defence of the nations of the south and west of Europe, to which it was naturally allied by a community of civilization, against the inroads of the northern barbarians, its immediate and natural enemies; it seemed established by Providence, in short, as a powerful advanced guard for the protection of Central Europe on the side where it was weakest and most easily assailable. As long, therefore, as the necessity of maintaining a balance of power entered into the calculations of cabinets, it might have been supposed, that whatever wars Europe might be engaged in, and whatever changes of territory might in consequence be effected, the most obvious views of interest, of policy, and even of self-defence, would have recommended the preservation of a kingdom, which, both from its peculiar situation, and from the high and chivalrous character of its people, formed, or at least should have formed, an important element in the European system. So far from this, however, Poland was first dismembered, and afterwards destroyed. Whilst the cupidity of Austria and Prussia was appeased by a share of the spoil, Russia attained the first object of her ambition by the removal of the grand obstacle which had hitherto prevented her from interfering in the affairs of the Continent; the equilibrium of power was entirely destroyed; and the other nations of Europe tamely acquiesced in a change of system, all the consequences of which have not yet been foreseen. The immediate results of this great public crime are matters of universal notoriety. Russia, elevated at once to the rank of a first-rate power, has attained an ascendancy in continental affairs, and, by means of systematic encroachments, has at length so completely humbled Turkey, that the period is not very distant when she will attempt to transfer the seat of her empire from Petersburg to Constantinople. Her ambitious designs were all along of the most grasping and comprehensive character; but as these were slowly and cautiously developed, at times and seasons most favourable for their advancement, her artful and insidious policy excited no suspicion or alarm until it was almost too late to check, far less to arrest, her career. It remains to be seen how far the other powers of Europe may yet have cause to regret the passive indifference with which they so long regarded the progressive aggrandisement of an empire, which already seems to aim at universal dominion, and the influence of which is now felt from the Indus to the Bosphorus.

The wars of the eighteenth century were not productive of any great or memorable changes, until the successful revolt of the British colonies in North America issued in the establishment of their independence. This important event, which gave birth to a kindred nation on the other side of the Atlantic, and laid the foundation of liberty in the New World, was generally regarded by the enemies of Britain as a fatal shock to her power and wonted superiority; and France, in assisting the colonies to conquer their independence, no doubt imagined that she was contributing in the most effectual manner to humble her ancient and formidable rival. But the result has shown that all such expectations were founded on error. The colonies, it is true, were disjoined from the mother country, and formed into an independent nation, which is now advancing with rapid strides in wealth, in power, and in greatness, and which is certainly destined, at no very distant date, to form one of the mightiest communities of freemen on the face of the earth. But Great Britain has had no cause to lament the separation, or to repine at their prosperity. Divested only of a splendid encumbrance, an expensive and invidious appanage, she has been left at liberty to reap the undivided benefits of her native vigour, to display new energies, to extend her industry and enterprise, and, in the profits of an active commerce with a great and rising nation, to indemnify herself for the barren distinction of maintaining unproductive establishments beyond the Atlantic. The separation, in fact, has proved equally advantageous to both parties. To America it formed the commencement of a career of prosperity unexampled in the history of nations, and of which it is yet impossible to foresee the full development; whilst Britain, relieved from a burden that exhausted her strength and crippled her vigour, started with fresh vigour in the race of improvement, and rose rapidly in greatness and power after the event which shortsighted politicians had considered as the forerunner of her humiliation and decay. Every addition made to the great community of free nations is in fact a common benefit to all.

On the other hand, the flame which, it was thought, would scorch Britain, soon blazed out with consuming violence in the bosom of her principal foe. The course of time, and, above all, the accumulated evils of ages of tyranny and misgovernment, had long been silently preparing in France those combustible elements which sooner or later explode in political convulsions. In the old system there was no self-correcting or regenerative principle; despotism can never stop short in its career, far less retrace its steps; its character is to persevere, its progress is from bad to worse. It is only by passing through a course of revolution, perhaps through anarchy, that long-lost liberty can be recovered; and the dominion of equal laws established; and to this transition every thing now tended in France. All the props of the old system were either undermined or decayed; the state of opinion and knowledge had prodigiously outrun a government which existed only on the recollections of the past; religion, having degenerated into superstition, had lost its hold on the public mind; free discussion had given rise to a new set of opinions, and bold doctrines were boldly promulgated; the decay of the finances weakened the power of the state, and whilst the country groaned under every sort of abuse, odious privileges inflamed the resentment of the people. In short, a crisis of the most tremendous description was evidently preparing; and it is probable enough that those who had served an apprenticeship to liberty in America, were not backward, on their return to their own country, in endeavouring to set up for themselves. Be this as it may, however, the crisis arrived even more speedily than could have been expected, and a constitution, extorted from the court, was at first thankfully received by the nation. But it is not of the nature of such political revulsions to stop short with a partial success. The re-action was too violent to be arrested after the first recoil, and soon swept away those who had vainly attempted to control and regulate it. The monarchy was overthrown, and in its fall dragged down the degenerate and corrupt church on which it had leaned for support. Anarchy for a season reigned in tumultuous and sanguinary supremacy. The prisons were crowded with victims, the scaffolds were drenched with gore. But victory declared in favour of the republic; and whilst torn by the violence of faction within, her arms were triumphant on the frontiers, and latterly both Germany and Italy were humbled at the feet of a government, the offspring of anarchy and revolution. Prussia, after suffering severe humiliation, withdrew early from the contest with France, to repair the injuries she had sustained, and brook in silence her disgrace. Austria, stimulated by British counsels, and subsidised by British gold, persisted longer, but was ultimately compelled, by the advance of a victorious army within a few marches of her capital, to submit to the law of the conqueror. Britain, triumphant on the ocean, still maintained an attitude of defiance; but seeing her allies struck down and humbled, she eventually concluded a peace, or at least a truce, with the new republic.

The shock produced by this contest was quite unprecedented. The impulse of the Revolution had proved irresistible, especially on the Continent. Marengo had decided the fate of Italy, which was in consequence wrenched from the grasp of Austria, whilst that power had almost simultaneously received a severe body blow at Hohenlinden. France having obtained the Rhine as her boundary, threatened Germany, and necessarily acquired an ascendancy over the smaller states along the river, as well as those interposed between that limit and the hereditary dominions of Austria. Naples was effectually humbled, and the power of the pope as a temporal sovereign almost annihilated. In a word, France had become lord of the ascendant on the Continent. But the Revolution had already passed the term of its ascending movement; the fiery impulse of republicanism had nearly exhausted itself. Napoleon became the heir of all that the Revolution had created; and the consulate had superseded the directorial government, to give way in its turn to the empire. It is unnecessary to retrace here the course of events, which have been fully detailed in the articles Britain and France. A military despotism was reared on the ruins of the republic, and for a time the genius and fortune of Napoleon proved irresistible. Coalition after coalition was formed under the auspices of Britain; but each in its turn was dissolved, and in its overthrow served only to aggravate the humiliation of the states of the Continent, and in the same proportion to augment the power of France. Austria was compelled to receive the law of the conqueror; Prussia, which had acted with equal faithlessness to her allies and her enemy, was at Iena almost blotted from the map of Europe; whilst Russia, defeated amidst the snows of Eylau, concluded a peace with the victor of Friedland. Soon afterwards another effort was made by Austria to check the career of the conqueror, but without success. But the doubtful advantage of Essling was effectually obliterated by the decisive victory of Wagram; and Germany was once more placed at the feet of Napoleon, to whom the vista of universal dominion now presented itself in all its illusive magnificence. This indeed was the marsh-fire which led him on to his destruction. The disastrous result of the expedition to Russia sealed his doom. The elements warred against him; and that mighty host which overwhelmed all armed opposition, being breathed upon by the frosty North, perished in the Russian deserts. All that genius and energy could achieve to repair this calamity was done, but in vain. Napoleon's hour was come, and he yielded to his destiny. Another astonishing effort to retrieve his fortunes, made in circumstances without a parallel in the history of nations, had no better success, and at Waterloo this wonderful man saw his last hope extinguished.

Thus the old monarchies of Europe, after a long and disastrous struggle, were once more victorious. They had contrived to awaken in their favour the patriotism of the people of the Continent; by promises of free constitutions, they had led, not armies, but nations, against their common enemy. In the intoxication of success, however, they forgot all the stipulations they had made during the agony of the struggle. The obligations they had come under to their people were disregarded; the division of the spoil alone occupied their attention. France saw herself reduced to her ancient limits, with an army of observation quartered on her soil. Austria recovered her ascendancy in Italy; Geneva was handed over to the king of Sardinia; Saxony was dismembered to gratify the rapacity and revenge of Prussia; the third and fourth-rate states of Germany, which had accepted the alliance of France, were humbled; a new Germanic Confederation was organized under the auspices of Austria and Prussia; a shadow of independence was, with a cruel mockery, conferred on the duchy of Warsaw, a miserable remnant of what had once been the kingdom of Poland, and Russia was constituted the protectorate thereof, on the same principle that the foolish shepherds intrusted the guardianship of their fold to the hypocritical but voracious wolf; and, lastly, a Holy Alliance was organized, for the purpose of repressing the slightest manifestation of a free spirit in any nation or state of the Continent. For the time, the principle of despotism was surrounded by the glare of recent triumph, enthroned amidst the shouts of victorious legions, and all-powerful for the repression of any attempt to secure the performance of those promises on the faith of which the nations had risen in arms to overthrow Napoleon. In Spain, in Naples, and in Piedmont, the constitution of the Cortes, which the allies had themselves sanctioned, was scarcely proclaimed, when the armies of the holy alliance, of France and of Austria in particular, marched to re-establish the old despotisms, and to extinguish constitutional liberty in both peninsulas.

But a short period wrought a wonderful change in the sentiments of men and in the prospects of nations. The government of Britain, which can never long act in opposition to public opinion, first withdrew from all connexion with, and ultimately declared pretty unequivocally against, the confederacy of despots formed for the extinction of liberty. A general re-action took place, and this was aided by a number of circumstances propitious to the popular cause. In South America the contest for independence continued steadily progressive, and excited deep sympathy in Europe. In Greece the sacred flame also burst forth, and, though at times nearly extinguished by the exterminating fury of the Moslem hordes, was constantly rekindled, and fanned up afresh, until at length that glorious country, the parent of the noblest form of civilization that existed in the ancient world, has been added to the great community of free and independent nations. A new era now opened upon the world. Throughout all Europe there thrilled one common feeling in favour of liberty, accompanied by an ardent desire of political improvement. An impulse had been silently given, which nothing has yet been able to check, far less withstand, and which, we have no doubt, will ultimately overcome all opposition. Even Turkey felt its force, and, under the auspices of the successor of the Prophet himself, commenced the work of reform. In France, in Britain, in Spain, and in Portugal, the working of this spirit has been signalized, and in different degrees crowned with success. Nearly contemporaneous with the third expulsion of the elder branch of the house of Bourbon from the throne of France, and the re-establishment of constitutional liberty in that country, was the great but bloodless revolution effected in Britain by the passing of the Reform Act, which, with all its defects, is one of the greatest securities for good government which this nation has ever obtained. No sooner had France disencumbered herself of the burden of an antiquated dynasty, which even the severe lessons of adversity had failed to enlighten, instruct, or amend, than Belgium, profiting by the example, cast off the yoke of Holland, and declared herself independent. In Portugal the expulsion of a cruel and perfidious usurper has been followed by the re-establishment of that constitution which he solemnly swore to maintain, and immediately thereafter trampled under foot; and Spain, under a new sovereign and an altered law of succession, though exposed to all the horrors and miseries of a civil war, continues firm in her adherence to those principles which can alone secure the social happiness and improvement of her still noble and generous people. In a word, the progressive advancement of knowledge amongst the nations is now producing its natural fruits; and though some of them are still in a state of transition, whilst in others the despotic principle continues to be an overmatch for its redoubtable antagonist; though Poland lies bleeding and lacerated in the clutches of Russia, and Germany bristles with bayonets, ready to pierce any who should dare to hoist the banners of liberty; yet there can be little doubt that the period of their deliverance is not distant, that the kingdom of Poland will ere long be reconstituted, and that grave and learned Germany will soon be free.

The principal difficulty of modern politics consists in the state of affairs in the East, or, in other words, in the peculiar relations of Russia and Turkey. The ambitious designs of the former power have long ceased to be doubtful, and, though cautiously pursued, they are in itself themselves of the most daring and comprehensive character. But although the weakness of the latter has been painfully exemplified, and although some errors of policy on the part of Britain and of France gave to Russia an advantage which she was not slow in profiting by, there seems to be no good ground for the apprehension and alarm which some profess to entertain upon this subject. For, besides the direct interposition of Britain and France, Egypt, which has proved under its victorious viceroy so instrumental in humbling the Porte, would, in the event of another war with Russia, become the natural and powerful ally of the Sultan; the interests of the new state of Greece would also lead the government of that country to make common cause against a power which sought to obtain an ascendency in the Mediterranean; and, what is more important than all, the boom of the first cannon-shot fired in a general war in Europe would announce to the nations the re-establishment of the kingdom of Poland. Nor is even this all. For if, as is well known, Austria already feels uneasy on account of the number of the points of contact between her dominions and those of Russia, to whose encroaching and aggrandising spirit she is no stranger, it is scarcely to be imagined that she would remain a silent spectator of any aggression which, if successful, would as it were envelope her in the coils of the great northern serpent, and enable that hideous snake to crush her at his leisure. Whilst the policy of nations is governed by a regard to their interest and their safety, these causes must continue to operate. Besides, there is a point beyond which aggression is the first step to destruction; and, in our estimation, Russia has already approximated closely, if she has not actually reached that ultimate term. Her resources are not equal to a great and sustained effort; and though her power, statistically considered, is formidable, it suffers great abatements before it can be displayed in action. This all her campaigns have illustrated; and this she has herself tacitly confessed, by trusting more to her able but insidious diplomacy than to the force of arms, which some imaginative alarmists regard as so irresistible.

II. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

The history of religion amongst the different nations of the world is a subject no less important and interesting than that of civil history. It is, however, less fertile of great events, affords an account of fewer revolutions, and is much more uniform. The reason of this is obvious. Religion is conversant about things which cannot be seen, and which consequently cannot suddenly and strongly affect the senses of mankind. The expectation of worldly riches may easily induce one nation to attack another; but it is not easy to find out any thing which will induce a nation to change its religion. The invisible nature of spiritual things, and the prejudice of habit and of early education, all stand in the way of changes of this kind. Hence revolutions in religion have been but few, and the duration of almost every religion has been of longer standing than the most celebrated empires; the changes which happened have, in general, required a long time to bring them about, and history scarcely affords an instance of the religion of any nation being essentially and suddenly changed.

With regard to the origin of religion, we must have recourse to the Scriptures, and adopt the account there given, because no other has made its appearance which seems in any degree rational, or consistent with itself. In what manner the true religion given to Adam was falsified or corrupted by his descendants before the Flood, Idolatry is not mentioned, yet we are nevertheless assured that the inhabitants of the world were then exceedingly wicked; and as their wickedness did not consist in worshipping false gods, it may be concluded that they worshipped none at all, or that the crime of the antediluvians was deism or atheism.

After the Flood, idolatry quickly made its appearance; but what gave rise to it is not certainly known. This form of superstition indeed seems to be natural to man, especially when placed in such a situation as affords him little opportunity of instruction, or of improving his rational faculties. Such a conclusion may be deduced from the caution given to the Jews, lest, when they looked up to the sun, moon, and stars, and the rest of the host of heaven, they should be driven to worship them. The origin of idolatry amongst the Syrians and Arabians, and also in Greece, is therefore accounted for with reference to their situation and the general aspect of nature. In those uncomfortable deserts, where the day presents nothing to the view but the uniform, tedious, and melancholy prospect of barren sands, the night discloses a most delightful and magnificent spectacle, and appears arrayed with charms of the most attractive kind. For the most part unclouded and serene, it exhibits to the wondering eye the host of heaven in all their variety and glory. In the view of this stupendous scene, the transition from admiration to idolatry was but too easy to uninstructed minds; and a people whose climate offered no beauties to contemplate but those of the firmament, would naturally look thither for the objects of their worship. The form of idolatry in Greece was different from that of the Syrians, which perhaps may be attributed to that smiling and variegated scene of mountains, valleys, rivers, woods, groves, and fountains, which the transported imagination, in the midst of its pleasing astonishment, supposed to be the seats of invisible deities.

A difficulty, however, arises on this supposition; for if idolatry is naturally produced in the mind of uninstructed and savage man from a view of the creation, why has not idolatry of some kind or other existed amongst all the different nations of the world? This certainly has not been the case, for the Persians of old, and the Moguls in modern times, were not idolaters. Both these nations professed strict deism, so that some other causes must have concurred in producing idolatry besides those already mentioned; and of these causes an imperfect and obscure notion of the true religion appears to be by far the most probable.

Though idolatry, therefore, was formerly prevalent, it neither extended over the whole earth, nor were the superstitions of idolaters all of one kind. Every nation had its respective gods, over which one more excellent than the rest was said to preside; yet in such a manner that this supreme deity himself was controlled by the rigid empire of the fates, or by what philosophers denominate eternal necessity. The gods of the East were different from those of the Gauls, the Germans, and the other northern nations. The Grecian divinities differed from those of the Egyptians, who deified plants, animals, and a great variety of the productions both of nature and art. Each people also worshipped and appeased their respective deities in a manner entirely different from the sacred rites of other countries. All this variety of religions, however, produced neither wars nor dissensions amongst the different nations; and each nation suffered its neighbours to follow their own method of worship, without discovering any hostility on that account. But there is nothing surprising in this mutual toleration, when we consider that they all looked upon the world as one great empire, divided into various provinces, over each of which a certain order of divinities presided; and hence they imagined that none could behold with contempt the Ecclesiastical History.

The Romans exercised this toleration in the most ample manner; for though they would not allow any change to be made in the religions which were publicly professed in the empire, nor any new form of worship to be openly introduced, yet they granted to their citizens a full liberty of observing in private the sacred rites of other nations, and of honouring such foreign deities as they thought worthy of their homage.

The heathen deities were honoured with rites and sacrifices of various kinds, according to their respective natures and offices. But their rites were absurd and their observances ridiculous; whilst the priests appointed to preside over this strange worship abused their authority, by imposing upon the people in the grossest manner.

From the time of the Flood till the coming of Christ, idolatry prevailed amongst almost all the nations of the world, the Jews alone excepted; and even they were on all occasions ready to fall into it, as is evident from their history in the Old Testament. At the time of Christ's appearance, the religion of the Romans, as well as their empire, extended over a great part of the then known world. There were amongst the heathens indeed some who perceived the absurdities of that system; but being destitute of means, as well as of ability, to effect a reformation, matters went on in their old way. Though there were at that time various sects of philosophers, yet all of them proceeded upon false principles, and consequently could be of no service to the advancement or reformation of religion. Nay, some, amongst whom were the Epicureans and Academics, declared openly against every kind of religion.

At this time two religions flourished in Palestine, the Jewish and Samaritan, between the respective followers of which there reigned the most violent hatred and contempt. The difference between them seems to have been chiefly about the place of worship, which the Jews contended should be in Jerusalem, and the Samaritans on Mount Gerizzim. But though the Jews were certainly right as to the locality, they had in other respects greatly corrupted their religion. They expected a Saviour indeed; but they mistook his character, imagining that he was to be a powerful and warlike prince, who should set them free from the Roman yoke, which they bore with the utmost impatience. They also conceived that the whole of religion consisted in observing the rites of Moses, and some others which they had added to these, without the least regard to what is commonly called morality or virtue. This seems evident from the many charges which our Saviour brings against the Pharisees, who had the greatest reputation for sanctity in the whole nation. To these corrupt and vicious principles they added several absurd and superstitious notions concerning the divine nature, invisible powers, magic, and the like, which they had partly imbibed during the Babylonian captivity, and partly derived from their neighbours in Arabia, Syria, and Egypt. The principal sects amongst them were the Essenes or Esseniens, Pharisees, and Sadducees. The Samaritans, according to the most general opinion, had corrupted their religion still more than the Jews.

Hence, when the true religion was preached by the Saviour of mankind, it is not to be wondered at if he became on that account obnoxious to a people so deeply sunk as the Jews then were in corruption and ignorance. It is not requisite here to enter into the particulars of the doctrine advanced by him, or of the opposition which he met with from the Jews. The rapid progress of the Christian religion, under its faithful and inspired ministers, soon alarmed the Jews, and raised various persecutions against its followers. The Jews, indeed, appear at first to have Ecclesiastical History.

been everywhere the chief promoters of persecution. We find indeed that they officiously went from place to place, wherever they heard of the increase of the gospel, and by their calumnies and false suggestions endeavoured to excite the people against the apostles. The Heathens, however, though at first they showed no very violent spirit of persecution against the Christians, soon came to hate them as much as the Jews themselves. Tacitus acquaints us with the cause of this hatred, when speaking of the first general persecution under Nero. That inhuman emperor having, as was supposed, set fire to the city of Rome, to avoid the imputation of this wickedness, transferred the odium of the atrocious act to the Christians. The historian informs us that they were already abhorred on account of their many and enormous crimes. "The author of this name (Christians)," says he, "was Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, was executed under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea. The pestilent superstition was for a while suppressed; but it revived again, and spread, not only over Judaea, where this evil was first broached, but reached Rome, whither is constantly flowing from every quarter of the earth whatever is hideous and abominable amongst men, and where it is readily embraced and practised. First, therefore, were apprehended such as openly avowed themselves to be of that sect; then by them were discovered an immense multitude; and all were convicted, not of the crime of burning Rome, but of hatred and enmity to mankind. Their death and tortures were aggravated by cruel derision and sport; for they were either covered with the skins of wild beasts, and torn in pieces by devouring dogs, or fastened to crosses, or wrapped up in combustible garments, that, when the day-light failed, they might, like torches, serve to dispel the darkness of the night. Hence, towards the miserable sufferers, however guilty and deserving of the most exemplary punishment, compassion arose, seeing they were doomed to perish not with a view to the public good, but to gratify the cruelty of one man."

That the account here given by Tacitus is downright misrepresentation and calumny, must be evident to every one who reads it. It is impossible that any person can be convicted of hatred and enmity to mankind, without specifying the facts by which this hatred showed itself. The burning of Rome would indeed have been a very plain indication of enmity to mankind; but of this Tacitus himself clears them, and mentions no other crime of which they were guilty. It is probable, therefore, that the only reason of this charge against the Christians, was their absolute refusal to have any share in the Roman idolatrous worship, or to countenance in any degree the absurd superstitions of Paganism.

The persecution under Nero was succeeded by another under Domitian, during which the apostle John was banished to Patmos, where he saw the visions, and wrote the book called the Apocalypse, which completes the canon of Scripture. This persecution commenced in the ninety-fifth year of the Christian era; and John is supposed to have written his Revelation the year after, or in the one that followed.

During the first century, the Christian religion spread over a great number of different countries; but as we have now no authentic records concerning the travels of the apostles, or the success which attended their ministry, it is impossible to determine how far the gospel was carried during this period. We are, however, assured, that even during this early period many corruptions were creeping in, the progress of which was with difficulty prevented even by the apostles themselves. Some corrupted their profession by an intermixture of Judaism, others by blending it with the oriental philosophy; whilst others, again, were already attempting to deprive their brethren of liberty, setting themselves up as eminent pastors, in opposition even to the apostles, as we learn from the epistles to St Paul, and the third epistle of St John. Hence arose the sects of the Gnostics, Cerinthians, Nicolaitans, Nazarenes, Ebionites, and many others, with which the church was troubled during this century.

Concerning the ceremonies and method of worship used by the Christians of the first century it is impossible to state anything with certainty. Neither has the church order, government, and discipline, during this period, been ascertained with any degree of exactness. Each of those parties, therefore, which exist at this day, contends with the greatest earnestness for that particular mode of worship which they themselves have adopted; and some of the most bigoted would willingly monopolize the word Church in such a manner as to exclude from all hope of salvation every one who is not attached to their particular party. It does not, however, appear that, excepting baptism, the Lord's Supper, and anointing the sick with oil, any external ceremonies or symbols were properly of divine appointment. According to Dr Mosheim, there are several circumstances which seem to indicate that the friends and apostles of our blessed Lord either tolerated through necessity, or appointed for wise reasons, many other external rites in various places. "At the same time we are not to imagine that they ever conferred upon any person a perpetual, indelible, pontifical authority, or that they enjoined the same rites in all churches. We learn, on the contrary, from authentic records, that the Christian worship was from the beginning celebrated in a different manner in different places; and that, no doubt, by the orders, or at least with the approbation, of the apostles and their disciples. In those early times, it was both wise and necessary to show, in the establishment of outward forms of worship, some indulgence to the ancient opinions, manners, and laws, of the respective nations to whom the gospel was preached."

The second century commences with the third year of the Emperor Trajan. The Christians were still persecuted; but as the Roman emperors of this century were for the most part princes of a mild and moderate temper, they persecuted less violently than formerly. Marcus Aurelius, notwithstanding the clemency and philosophy for which he is so much celebrated, treated the Christians worse than Trajan, Hadrian, or even Severus himself, who was noted for his cruelty. This respite from rigorous persecution proved a favourable circumstance for the diffusion of the Christian religion; yet it is by no means easy to point out the particular countries through which it had already spread. We are, however, assured, that in the second century, Christ was worshipped as God throughout almost the whole East, as also amongst the Germans, Spaniards, Celts, and many other nations; but which of them received the gospel in the first century, and which in the second, is a question which at this distance of time cannot be satisfactorily determined. The writers of this century attribute the rapid progress of Christianity chiefly to the extraordinary gifts which were imparted to the first Christians, and the miracles which were wrought at their command; without supposing that any part of the success ought to be ascribed to the intervention of human means, or secondary causes. Many of the moderns, however, are so far from being of this opinion, that they are willing either to deny the authenticity of all miracles said to have been wrought since the days of the apostles, or to ascribe them to the power of the devil. But to enter into the particulars of this controversy is foreign to our present purpose; and for this reason we must refer to the writers on polemical divinity, who have largely treated of this and other points of a similar nature.

The corruptions which had been introduced in the first

ancient privileges of the people were considerably diminished, and the power and authority of the bishops proportionally augmented. The humility and prudence of these pious prelates indeed hindered them from assuming all at once the power with which they were invested. At their first appearance in these general councils, they acknowledged that they were no more than the delegates of their respective churches, and that they acted in the name and by the appointment of their people. But afterwards changing this humble tone, they imperceptibly extended the limits of their authority; turned their influence into dominion, their counsels into laws; and at length openly asserted that Christ had empowered them to prescribe to his people authoritative rules of faith and manners. Another effect of these councils was the gradual abolition of that perfect equality which had reigned amongst all bishops in the primitive times. For the order and decency of these assemblies required, that some one of the provincial bishops met in council should be invested with a superior degree of power and authority; and hence originated the rights of metropolitans. In the mean time, the bounds of the church were enlarged; the custom of holding councils was followed wherever the sound of the gospel had reached; and the universal church had now the appearance of one vast republic, formed by a combination of a great number of small states. This occasioned the creation of a new order of ecclesiastics, who were appointed in different parts of the world as heads of the church, and whose office it was to preserve the consistence and union of that immense body, the members of which were so widely dispersed throughout the nations. Such was the nature and office of the Patriarchs, amongst whom, at length, ambition, having arrived at its greatest excess, formed a new dignity, investing the bishop of Rome with the title and authority of the Prince of the Patriarchs.

During the second century, there continued all the sects which had sprung up in the first, with the addition of several others, the most remarkable of which were the Ascetics. This sect owed its rise to an error propagated by some doctors of the church, who asserted that Christ had established a double rule of sanctity and virtue for two different orders of Christians. Of these rules, the one was ordinary and the other extraordinary; the one of a lower dignity, the other more sublime; the first for persons engaged in the active scenes of life, the second for those who, in a sacred retreat, aspired after the glory of a celestial state. They accordingly divided into two parts all those moral doctrines and instructions which they had received either by writing or tradition, calling one of these divisions precepts, and the other counsels. The name of precepts they gave to those laws which were universally obligatory upon all orders of men; and that of counsels to those which related to Christians of a more sublime rank, who proposed to themselves great and glorious ends, and breathed after an intimate communion with the Supreme Being. Thus were produced all at once a new set of men, who made pretensions to uncommon sanctity and virtue, and declared their resolution of obeying all the precepts and counsels of Christ, in order to their enjoyment and communion with God here, and also that, after the dissolution of their mortal bodies, they might ascend to him with the greater facility, and find nothing to retard their approach to the centre of happiness and perfection. They looked upon themselves as prohibited from the use of things which it was lawful for other Christians to enjoy, such as wine, flesh, matrimony, and commerce. They thought it their indispensable duty to extenuate their body by watchings, abstinence, labour, and hunger. They looked for felicity in solitary retreats, and in desert places, where, by severe and assiduous efforts of sublime medita- Ecclesiastic, they sought to raise the soul above all external objects, and all sensual pleasures. They were distinguished from other Christians, not only by the titles of Ascetics, Ἐσκετικοί, Ἐλληνικοί, and philosophers, but also by their garb. In this century, indeed, those who embraced such an austere mode of life submitted themselves to all these mortifications in private, without breaking asunder their social bands, or withdrawing themselves from mankind; but in process of time they retired into deserts, and, after the example of the Essenes and Therapeutae, formed themselves into regular companies.

This austere sect originated in a belief which has been more or less prevalent in all ages and in all countries, namely, that religion consists more in prayers, meditations, and a kind of secret intercourse with God, than in fulfilling the social duties of life, and in acts of benevolence and humanity to mankind. Nothing can be more evident indeed than that the Scripture reckons the fulfilling of these infinitely superior to the observance of all the ceremonies which can be imagined. Yet it somehow or other happens, that almost everybody is more inclined to observe the ceremonial part of devotion than the moral; and hence, according to the different humours or constitutions of different persons, there have been numberless forms of Christianity, and the most virulent contentions amongst those who professed themselves followers of the Prince of Peace. It is obvious, that if the moral conduct of Christians was to be made the standard of faith, instead of speculative opinions, all these divisions must cease in a moment; but whilst Christianity, or any part of it, is made to consist in speculation, or the observance of ceremonies, it is impossible there can be any end of sects or heresies. No opinion whatever is so absurd, but some people have pretended to argue in its defence; no ceremony is so insignificant, but it has been explained and sanctified by hot-headed enthusiasts; and hence sects, ceremonies, and absurdities, have been multiplied without number, to the prejudice of society and the detriment of the Christian religion. This short relation of the rise of the Ascetic sect will also serve to account for the rise of any other; so that we apprehend it is needless to enter into particulars concerning the rest, as they all took their origin from the same general principle variously modified, according to the different dispositions of mankind.

The Ascetic sect originated in Egypt, whence it passed into Syria and the neighbouring countries. At length it reached the European nations; and hence that train of austere and superstitious vows and rites which totally obscured, or rather annihilated, Christianity, together with the celibacy of the clergy, and many other absurdities of a similar description. The errors of the Ascetics, however, did not stop here. In compliance with the doctrines of some Pagan philosophers, they affirmed that it was not only lawful, but even praiseworthy, to deceive, and to use the expedient of a lie, in order to advance the cause of piety and truth; and hence the "pious frauds" with which the church of Rome has been so often reproached.

In proportion as Christians thus deviated from the true practice, they became more zealous in the external profession of their religion. Anniversary festivals were celebrated in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ, and of the effusion of the Holy Ghost on the apostles. But concerning the days on which these festivals were to be kept there arose violent contests. The Asiatic churches in general differed in this point from those of Europe; and towards the conclusion of the second century, Victor, bishop of Rome, took it into his head to force the eastern churches to follow the rules laid down by those of the West. But this they absolutely refused to comply withal, upon which Victor cut them off from communion with the church of Rome; though, by the intercession of some prudent persons, the difference was temporarily composed.

During most of the third century the Christians were allowed to enjoy their religion, such as it was, without molestation. The emperors Maximinus and Decius, indeed, made them feel all the rigours of a severe persecution; but the reigns of these persecutors were short, and from the death of Decius till the time of Diocletian the church enjoyed tranquillity. Vast multitudes were accordingly converted; but at the same time the doctrine of the church grew daily more corrupt, and the lives of professing Christians became more wicked and scandalous. New ceremonies were invented in great numbers, and an unaccountable passion prevailed for the oriental superstitions concerning demons, whence sprung the whole train of exorcisms, spells, and fears for the apparition of evil spirits, which are not yet entirely eradicated. From the same source was also derived the custom of avoiding all connections with those who were not baptized, or who lay under the penalty of excommunication, as persons supposed to be under the dominion of some evil spirit; and hence the rigorous severity of that discipline and penance imposed upon those who had incurred, by their immoralities, the censure of the church. Several alterations were now made in the manner of celebrating the eucharist. The prayers used on this occasion were lengthened, the solemnity and pomp with which it was attended were considerably increased, and gold and silver vessels were used in its celebration. It was now thought essential to salvation, and for that reason administered even to infants. Baptism was celebrated twice a year to such as, after a long course of trial and preparations, offered themselves as candidates for admission into the church. The remission of sins was believed to be its immediate consequence, whilst the bishop, by prayer and imposition of hands, was supposed to confer those sanctifying gifts of the Holy Spirit which were necessary to a life of righteousness and virtue. An evil daemon was supposed naturally to reside in every person, and was accounted the author and source of all the corrupt dispositions and unrighteous actions of that person. The expulsion of this daemon therefore formed an essential requisite for baptism; and hence the baptized persons returned home clothed in white garments, and adorned with crowns, as sacred emblems, the former of their inward purity and innocence, and the latter of their victory over sin and the world. Fasting began now to be held in more esteem than formerly. A high degree of sanctity was attributed to this practice; it was even looked upon as indispensably necessary, from a notion that the demons directed their force chiefly against those who pampered themselves with delicious fare, and were less troublesome to the lean and hungry who lived under the severities of a rigorous abstinence. The sign of the cross was also supposed to possess a victorious power over all sorts of trials and calamities; it was more especially considered as the surest defence against the snares and stratagems of malignant spirits; and for this reason no Christian undertook any thing of moment, without arming himself, as he imagined, with the power of this triumphant sign. The heresies which troubled the church during this century were those of the Gnostics, whose doctrines were new-modelled and improved by Manes, the founder of the Manicheans, the Hieracites, Noctians, Sabellians, and Novatians; but for a particular account of these sects, the reader is referred to the articles under their respective names.

The fourth century is remarkable for the establishment of Christianity by law in the Roman empire, which took place in the year 324. In the beginning of this century the empire was governed by four chiefs; Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius Chlorus, and Galerius, under whom the church enjoyed complete toleration. Diocletian, though much addicted to superstition, entertained no hatred of the Christians; and Constantius Chlorus, having abandoned polytheism, treated them with condescension and benevolence. This alarmed the Pagan priests, whose interests were so closely connected with the continuance of the ancient superstitions, and who apprehended, not without reason, that the Christian religion would at length prevail throughout the empire. To prevent the downfall of the Pagan superstition, therefore, they applied to Diocletian and Galerius Cesar, by whom a bloody persecution was commenced in the year 303, and continued till 311. An asylum, however, was opened for the Christians in the year 304. Galerius having dethroned Diocletian and Maximian, declared himself emperor in the East, leaving to Constantius Chlorus all the western provinces, to which great numbers of Christians resorted to avoid the cruelty of the persecutor. But Galerius being at length overtaken with a dreadful and incurable disease, published an edict ordering the persecutions to cease, and restoring freedom to the Christians, whom, for eight years, he had most inhumanly oppressed. Galerius died the same year; and in a short time afterwards, when Constantine the Great ascended the throne, the Christians were freed from any further uneasiness, by his abrogating all the penal laws enacted against them, and afterwards issuing edicts by which no other religion than the Christian was tolerated throughout the empire.

But this event, so favourable to the outward peace of the church, was far from promoting its internal harmony, or the reformation of its leaders. The clergy, who had all this time been augmenting their power at the expense of the liberty of the people, now set no bounds to their ambition. The bishop of Rome was the first in rank; and distinguished by a sort of pre-eminence above the rest of the prelates. He surpassed all his brethren in the magnificence and splendour of the church over which he presided, in the riches of his revenues and possessions, in the number and variety of his ministers, in his credit with the people, and in his sumptuous and splendid manner of living. Hence it happened, that when a new pontiff was to be chosen by the presbyters and people, the city of Rome was generally agitated with dissensions, tumults, and cabals, which often produced fatal consequences. The intrigues and disturbances which prevailed in that city in the year 366, when, upon the death of Liberius, another pontiff was to be chosen in his room, are a sufficient proof of what we have advanced. Upon that occasion, one faction elected Damasus to that high dignity; whilst the opposite party chose Ursicinus, a deacon of the vacant church, to succeed Liberius. This double election gave rise to a dangerous schism, and to a sort of civil war within the city of Rome, which was carried on with the utmost fury and barbarity, and produced the most cruel massacres and desolations. The inhuman contest ended in the victory of Damasus; but whether his cause was more or less just than that of Ursicinus, cannot now be determined with any degree of certainty.

Notwithstanding the pomp and splendour which surrounded the Roman see, it appears that the bishops of Rome had not yet acquired that pre-eminence of power and jurisdiction which they afterwards enjoyed. In the ecclesiastical commonwealth, indeed, they were the most eminent order of citizens; but still they were citizens as well as their brethren, and subject, like them, to the laws and edicts of the emperors. All religious causes of extraordinary importance were examined and determined either by judges appointed by the emperors, or in councils assembled for that purpose; whilst those of inferior moment were decided in each district by its respective bishop. The ecclesiastical laws were enacted either by the emperor or by the councils. None of the bishops acknowledged that they derived their authority from the permission and appointment of the bishop of Rome, or that they were created bishops by the favour of the Apostolic See. On the contrary, they all maintained that they were the ambassadors and ministers of Jesus Christ, and that their authority was derived from above. It must, however, be observed, that even in this century several of those steps were laid by which the bishops of Rome afterwards ascended to the summit of ecclesiastical power and authority. This happened partly by the imprudence of the emperors, partly by the dexterity of the Roman prelates themselves, and partly by the inconsiderate zeal and precipitate judgment of certain bishops. The imprudence of the emperor, and the precipitation of the bishops, were remarkably discovered in an event which greatly favoured the ambition of the Roman pontiff. About the year 372, Valentinian enacted a law, empowering the bishop of Rome to examine and judge other bishops, in order that religious disputes might not be decided by any profane or secular judges. The bishops assembled in council at Rome in 378, not considering the consequences which might ensue from this imprudent law, both to themselves and to the church, declared their approbation in the strongest terms, and recommended the execution of it in their address to the emperor Gratian. Some think, indeed, that this law empowered the bishop of Rome to judge only the bishops within the limits of his jurisdiction; but others are of opinion that his power was given only for a certain time, and for a particular purpose. This last notion seems the most probable; but still the privilege in question must have proved an excellent instrument for the advancement of sacerdotal ambition.

By the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople, the emperor raised up, in the bishop of this new metropolis, a formidable opponent to the bishop of Rome, and erected a bulwark which threatened a vigorous opposition to his growing authority. For as the emperor, desiring to render Constantinople a second Rome, enriched it with all the rights and privileges, honours and ornaments, of the ancient capital of the world; so its bishop, measuring his own dignity and rank by the magnificence of the new city, and its eminence as the seat of empire, assumed an equal degree of authority with the bishop of Rome, and claimed a superiority over the rest of the episcopal order. Nor did the emperors disapprove of these high pretensions, since they considered their own dignity as connected in a certain measure with that of the bishop of the imperial city. Accordingly, in a council held at Constantinople in the year 381, by the authority of Theodosius the Great, the bishop of that city was, during the absence of the bishop of Alexandria, and against the consent of the Roman pontiff, placed, by the third canon of that council, in the first rank after the bishop of Rome, and consequently above those of Alexandria and Antioch. Nectarius was the first bishop who enjoyed the new honours accumulated on the see of Constantinople. His successor, the celebrated John Chrysostom, extended still further the privileges of that see, and submitted to its jurisdiction all Thrace, Asia, and Pontus; nor were the succeeding bishops of the imperial city destitute of a fervent zeal to augment their privileges and extend their dominion. By this unexpected promotion, however, the most disagreeable effects were produced. The bishops of Alexandria were not only filled with the most inveterate hatred against those of Constantinople, but a contention was excited between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople, which, after being carried on for ages, terminated at last in the separation of the Greek and Latin churches.

Constantine the Great, in order to prevent civil commotions, and to fix his authority on a stable and solid founda- Ecclesiastical History, made several changes not only in the laws of the empire, but also in the form of the Roman government. And as many important reasons induced him to adapt the administration of the church to these changes in the civil constitution, this necessarily introduced amongst the bishops new degrees of rank and eminence. The four bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria, were distinguished by a certain degree of pre-eminence over the rest. These four prelates answered to the four praetorian prefects created by Constantine; and it is possible, that even in this century they were distinguished by the Jewish title of patriarchs. After them followed the exarchs, who had the inspection of several provinces, and answered to the appointment of certain civil officers who bore the same title. In a lower class were the metropolitans, who had only the government of one province; under whom were the archbishops, whose inspection was confined to certain districts. In this gradation the bishops brought up the rear; but the sphere of their authority was not in all places equally extensive, being in some considerable, and in others confined within narrow limits. To these various ecclesiastical orders we might add that of the Chorepiscopi, or superintendents of the country churches; but this last order was in most places suppressed by the bishops, with the design of extending their own authority, and enlarging the sphere of their own power and jurisdiction. The administration of the church itself was divided by Constantine into an external and internal inspection. The latter, which was committed to bishops and councils, related to religious controversies, the forms of divine worship, the offices of priests, the vices of the ecclesiastical orders, and other matters. The external administration of the church the emperor assumed to himself. This comprehended all those things which related to its outward state and discipline; it likewise extended to all contests which might arise between the ministers of the church, superior as well as inferior, concerning their possessions, their reputation, their rights and privileges, their offences against the laws, and other matters, but no controversies which related to matters purely spiritual were cognizable by this external inspection. In consequence of this artful division of the ecclesiastical government, Constantine and his successors called councils, presided in them, appointed the judges of religious controversies, terminated the differences which arose between the bishops and the people, fixed the limits of the ecclesiastical provinces, took cognizance of the civil causes which originated between the ministers of the church, and punished the crimes committed against the laws by the ordinary judges appointed for that purpose, giving over all causes purely ecclesiastical to the bishops and councils. But this division of the administration of the church was never explained with sufficient accuracy; and hence both in the fourth and fifth centuries there are frequent instances of the emperors determining matters purely ecclesiastical, and likewise of bishops and councils determining matters which related merely to the external form and government of the church.

After the time of Constantine many additions were made by the emperors and others to the wealth and honours of the clergy; and these additions were followed by a proportional increase of their vices and luxury, particularly amongst those who lived in great and opulent cities. The bishops, on the one hand, contended with each other in the most scandalous manner concerning the extent of their respective jurisdictions; whilst, on the other, they trampled on the rights of the people, violated the privileges of the inferior clergy, and imitated in their conduct and in their manner of living the arrogance, voluptuousness, and luxury of magistrates and princes. This pernicious example was soon followed by the several ecclesiastical orders. The presbyters, in many places, assumed an equality with the bishops in point of rank and authority. Many complaints are also made by the authors of this century concerning the vanity and effeminacy of the deacons. Those more particularly of the presbyters and deacons who filled the first stations of these orders, carried their pretensions to an extravagant length, and were offended at the notion of being placed on an equality with their colleagues. For this reason they not only assumed the titles of Archpresbyters and Archdeacons, but also claimed a degree of authority and power much superior to that which was vested in the other members of their respective orders.

In the fifth century, the bishops of Constantinople having already reduced under their jurisdiction all the Asiatic provinces, began to aim at a still further increase of power. By the twenty-eighth canon of the council held at Chalcedon in 451, it was resolved that the same rights and honours which had been conferred upon the bishop of Rome were due to the bishop of Constantinople, on account of the equal dignity and lustre of the two cities in which these prelates exercised their authority. The same council by a solemn act confirmed the bishop of Constantinople in the spiritual government of those provinces over which he had usurped the jurisdiction. Leo the Great, bishop of Rome, opposed with vehemence the enactment of these laws; and his opposition was seconded by that of several other prelates. But their efforts were vain, as the emperors threw in their weight into the balance, and thus supported the decisions of the Grecian bishops. In virtue of the decisions of this famous council, therefore, the bishop of Constantinople began to contend obstinately with the Roman pontiff for the supremacy, and to crush the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria. About the same time, Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, attempted to withdraw himself and his church from the jurisdiction of the bishop of Cesarea, and aspired to a place amongst the first prelates of the Christian world. The high degree of veneration and esteem in which the church of Jerusalem was held amongst all the other Christian societies, on account of its rank amongst the apostolical churches, and its title to the appellation of mother church, as having succeeded the first Christian assembly formed by the apostles, was extremely favourable to the ambition of Juvenal, and rendered his project much more practicable than it would otherwise have been. Encouraged by this, and likewise by the protection of Theodosius the younger, this aspiring prelate not only assumed the dignity of patriarch of all Palestine, a rank which rendered him independent of all spiritual authority; but also invaded the rights of the bishop of Antioch, and usurped his jurisdiction over the provinces of Phoenicia and Arabia. Hence there arose between Juvenal and Maximus bishop of Antioch, a warm contest, which the council of Chalcedon decided, by restoring to the latter the provinces of Phoenicia and Arabia, and confirming the former in the spiritual possession of all Palestine, and in the high rank which he had assumed in the church.

In 588, John, bishop of Constantinople, surnamed the Faster, either by his own authority, or by that of the emperor Mauritius, summoned a council at Constantinople, to inquire into an accusation brought against Gregory, bishop of Antioch; and upon this occasion he assumed the title of Ecumenical or Universal Bishop. This title had been formerly enjoyed by the bishop of Constantinople without any offence; but Gregory the Great, at that time bishop of Rome, suspecting that John was aiming at establishing supremacy over all the churches, opposed his claim with the greatest vigour. For this purpose he applied by letters to the emperor, and others whom he thought capable of assisting him in his opposition; but all his efforts were without effect; and the bishops of Con- Constantinople were allowed to enjoy the disputed title, though not in the sense which had alarmed the Roman pontiff.

Gregory, however, adhered tenaciously to his purpose; raised new tumults and dissensions amongst the clergy; and aimed at nothing less than an unlimited supremacy over the Christian church. This ambitious design succeeded in the West; but in the eastern provinces his arrogant pretensions were scarcely respected by any excepting those who were at enmity with the bishop of Constantinople. How much the people were at this time deluded by the Roman pontiffs, appears from the expression of Eusebius, one of the flatterers of Symmachus, a prelate of but ambiguous fame, that the Roman pontiff was constituted judge in the place of God, and acted as the vicegerent of the Most High. On the other hand, from a variety of authentic records, it may be concluded that both the emperors and the nations in general were far from being disposed to bear with patience the yoke of servitude which the see of Rome was thus labouring to impose on the whole church.

In the beginning of the seventh century, according to the most learned historians, Boniface III. engaged Phocas, emperor of Constantinople, to deprive the bishop of that metropolis of the title of oecumenical or universal bishop, and to confer it upon the Roman pontiff; and thus was first introduced the supremacy of the pope. Meanwhile the Roman pontiffs employed every method to maintain and enlarge their authority and pre-eminence.

In the eighth century, the power of the bishop of Rome, and of the clergy in general, increased prodigiously. The principal cause of this was the method at that time employed by the European princes to secure themselves on their thrones. All these princes being then occupied either in usurpation or in self-defence, and the whole Continent being in the most unsettled and barbarous condition, they endeavoured to attach to their interests those whom they considered as their friends and clients. With this view they distributed amongst the latter extensive territories, cities, and fortresses, with the various rights and privileges belonging to them; reserving only to themselves the supreme dominion, and the military service of these powerful vassals. Hence the European princes reckoned it a high instance of political prudence to distribute amongst the bishops and other Christian doctors the same sort of donations which had formerly been given to their generals and clients. By means of the clergy, they hoped to check the seditious and turbulent spirits of their vassals, and to maintain them in obedience by the influence and authority of their bishops, whose commands were highly respected, and whose spiritual thunderbolts, rendered formidable by ignorance, struck terror into the boldest and most resolute hearts.

This prodigious accession to the opulence and authority of the clergy in the West began at their head, the Roman pontiff; and from him it descended, spreading gradually amongst the inferior sacerdotal orders. The barbarous nations who had received the gospel looked upon the bishop of Rome as the successor of their chief druid or high priest; and as this druid had, under the darkness of Paganism, enjoyed boundless authority, so these barbarous nations thought proper to confer upon the supreme pontiff the same authority which had belonged to the chief druid. The pope received these august privileges with undisguised satisfaction; and lest attempts should be made to deprive him thereof, he strengthened his titles to these extraordinary honours by a variety of passages drawn from ancient history, and even by arguments of a religious nature. This increased the power of the pope enormously, and gave to the see of Rome that high pre-eminence and despotic authority in civil and political matters which were unknown to former ages. Hence, amongst other unhappy circumstances, arose the pernicious opinion, that such persons as were excluded from the communion of the church by the pontiff himself, or by any of the bishops, forfeited not only their civil rights and advantages as citizens, but even the common claims and privileges of humanity. This monstrous opinion, which proved a fatal source of wars, massacres, and rebellions, and which contributed more than anything else to confirm and augment the papal authority, was borrowed by the clergy from the Pagan superstitions. Though, from the time of Constantine the Great, excommunication was, in every part of the Christian world, attended with many disagreeable consequences, yet its highest terrors were confined to Europe, where its aspect was truly formidable and hideous. But in the eighth century it acquired a new accession of terror; and from that period the excommunication practised in Europe differed entirely from that which was in use in other parts of Christendom. Excommunicated persons were indeed considered in all places as objects of hatred both to God and man; but they were not on that account robbed of the privileges of citizens, nor of the rights of humanity; much less were those kings and princes, whom an insolent bishop had thought proper to exclude from the communion of the church, supposed to forfeit on that account their crowns or their territories. But from this century it was quite otherwise in Europe. Excommunication received that plenary power which dissolved all connections; those whom the bishops or their heads excluded from church communion were degraded to a level with the beasts. This unnatural power took its origin in an ignorant misconception. Upon the conversion of the barbarous nations to Christianity, these proselytes confounded the excommunication in use amongst Christians with that which had been practised in the times of Paganism, and which was attended with all the dreadful effects above mentioned. The Roman pontiffs, on the other hand, were too artful not to encourage this error; and hence they employed all sorts of means to gain credit to an opinion so well calculated to gratify their ambition, and to aggrandize the episcopal order.

The annals of the French nation furnish us with an instance of the enormous power which was at this time vested in the Roman pontiff. Pepin, who was mayor of the palace to Childeric III. king of France, and who in the exercise of that high office possessed in reality the royal power and authority, aspired to the titles and honours of majesty, and formed a scheme for dethroning his sovereign. For this purpose he assembled the states in 751; and although they were devoted to the interests of the ambitious usurper, they gave it as their opinion that the bishop of Rome was previously to be consulted whether the execution of such a scheme was lawful or the contrary. Ambassadors were accordingly sent by Pepin to Zachary, the reigning pontiff, with the following question: "Whether the divine law did not permit a valiant and warlike people to dethrone a pusillanimous and indolent prince, who was incapable of discharging any of the functions of royalty, and to substitute in his place one more worthy to rule, and who had already rendered most important services to the state?" The situation of Zachary, who stood much in need of the succours of Pepin against the Greeks and Lombards, rendered his answer such as the usurper desired; and when this favourable decision of the Roman pontiff was published in France, the unhappy Childeric was stripped of his royalty without the least opposition, and Pepin stepped into the throne of his sovereign and master. This decision was solemnly confirmed by Stephen II., the successor of Zachary, who undertook a journey into France in the year 754, in order to solicit assistance against the Lombards. The pontiff at the same time dis- Ecclesiastical His- solved the obligation of the oath of fidelity and allegiance which Pepin had violated by his usurpation in the year 751; and to render his title to the crown as sacred as possible, Stephen anointed and crowned him with his wife and two sons, for the second time. This complaisance of the pope was rewarded with the exarchate of Ravenna and all its dependencies, as has already been related.

In the succeeding centuries, the Roman pontiffs continued by every means to increase their power; and by continually taking advantage of the civil dissensions which prevailed throughout Italy, France, and Germany, their influence in civil affairs rose to an enormous height. The increase of their authority in religious matters was not less rapid. The wisest and the most impartial amongst the Roman Catholic writers acknowledge, that from the time of Louis the Meek the ancient rules of ecclesiastical government were gradually changed in Europe by the counsels and instigation of the church of Rome, and new laws substituted in their stead. The European princes suffered themselves to be divested of the supreme authority in religious matters, which they had derived from Charlemagne; the power of the bishops was greatly diminished, and even the authority of both provincial and general councils began to decline. The popes, elated with their overgrown power, and rendered arrogant by the daily accessions which were made to their authority, sought to establish the maxim, that the bishop of Rome was constituted and appointed by Jesus Christ as supreme legislator and judge of the universal church, and that consequently the bishops derived all their authority from him. This opinion, which they inculcated with the utmost zeal and ardour, was opposed in vain by such as were acquainted with the ancient ecclesiastical constitutions, and the government of the church in the primitive ages. But in order to gain credit to this new ecclesiastical code, and to support the pretensions of the popes to supremacy, it was necessary to produce the authority of ancient deeds, in order to shut the mouths of such as were disposed to set bounds to their usurpations. The bishops of Rome were aware of this; and as all means were looked upon as lawful which tended to the accomplishment of their designs, they employed some of their most ingenious and zealous partisans in forging conventions, acts of councils, epistles, and such like records, by which it might appear that in the first ages of the church the Roman pontiffs were clothed with the same spiritual majesty and supreme authority which they now assumed. There were not wanting amongst the bishops, however, some men of prudence and sagacity, who saw through these pious frauds, and perceived the chains which were forging both for them and for the church. The French bishops distinguished themselves eminently in this respect; but their opposition was soon quashed; and as all Europe had sunk in the grossest ignorance and darkness, none remained who were capable of detecting these impostures, or disposed to support the expiring liberty of the church. It is proper to add, however, that these grievous charges are strenuously denied by Catholic writers.

In the eleventh century the power of the bishops of Rome seems to have attained its utmost height. They now received the pompous titles of masters of the world, and popes, or universal fathers. They presided everywhere in the councils by their legates, assumed the authority of supreme arbiters in all controversies which arose concerning religion or church discipline, and maintained the pretended rights of the church against the encroachments and usurpations of kings and princes. Their authority, however, was confined within certain limits. On the one hand, it was restrained by sovereign princes, that it might not arrogantly aim at civil dominion; and on the other, it was opposed by the bishops themselves, that it might not degenerate into a spiritual despotism, and utterly destroy the privileges and liberty of synods and councils. From the time of Leo IX. the popes employed every method which ambition could suggest to remove those limits, and to render their dominion both despotic and universal. They not only aspired to the character of supreme legislators in the church, to an unlimited jurisdiction over all synods and councils, whether general or provincial, and to the sole distribution of all ecclesiastical honours and benefices, as divinely authorized and appointed for that purpose; but they carried their pretensions so far as to give themselves out as lords of the universe, arbiters of the fate of kingdoms and empires, and supreme rulers over the kings and princes of the earth. Hence we find instances of their giving away kingdoms, and loosing subjects from their allegiance to their sovereigns, as in the case of King John of England. They even assumed the whole earth as their property, as well where Christianity was planted as where it was not. Accordingly, on the discovery of America and the East Indies, the pope, by virtue of this spiritual property, granted to the Portuguese a right to all the countries lying to the eastward, and to the Spaniards a right to all those lying to the westward, of Cape Non in Africa, which they were able to conquer by force of arms.

During all this time superstition reigned triumphant over the remains of Christianity which had escaped the corruptions of the first four centuries. In the fifth century commenced the invocation of the happy souls of departed saints. Their assistance was entreated by fervent prayers, whilst none stood up in opposition to this preposterous kind of worship. The images of those who during their lives had acquired the reputation of uncommon sanctity, were now honoured with a particular homage in several places; and many ignorant persons imagined that this drew into the images the propitious presence of the saints or celestial beings whom they were supposed to represent. A singular efficacy was attributed to the bones of martyrs, and to the figure of the cross, in defeating all the attempts of Satan, removing all sorts of calamities, and in healing not only the diseases of the body, but also those of the mind. The famous Pagan doctrine concerning the purification of departed souls by means of a certain kind of purgation, was also confirmed and explained more fully than it had formerly been; and it is well known of how much consequence this doctrine at one time proved to the wealth and the power of the church of Rome.

In the sixth century Gregory the Great advanced an opinion, that all the words of the sacred writings were images of invisible and spiritual things; and for this reason he loaded the churches with a multitude of ceremonies the most insignificant and futile that can well be imagined. Hence arose a new and most difficult science, namely, the explication of these ceremonies, and the investigation of the causes and circumstances whence they derived their origin. A new method was contrived of administering the Lord's Supper, with a magnificent assemblage of pompous ceremonies. This was called the Canon of the Mass. Baptism, excepting in cases of necessity, was administered only on the great festivals. An incredible number of temples were erected in honour of the saints. The places set apart for public worship were also very numerous. But now they were considered as the means of purchasing the protection and favour of the saints; and the ignorant and barbarous multitude were persuaded that these departed spirits defended and guarded against evils and calamities of every kind, the provinces, lands, cities, and villages in which they were honoured with temples. The number of these temples was almost equalled by that of the festivals, which were increased beyond all bounds, and formed a grievous deduction from the time of the people. In the seventh century religion seemed to be altogether buried under a heap of superstitious ceremonies; the worship of the true God and Saviour of the world was exchanged for that of bones, relics, and images. The eternal state of misery threatened in Scripture to the wicked was commuted for the temporary punishment of purgatory; and the expressions of faith in Christ by an upright and virtuous conduct, for the augmentation of the riches of the clergy by donations to the church, and the observance of a heap of idle ceremonies. New festivals were still added; one in particular was instituted in honour of the true cross on which our Saviour had suffered; and churches were declared to be sanctuaries to all who fled to them, whatever their crimes might have been.

Superstition, it would seem, had now attained its highest pitch; nor is it easy to conceive any degree of ignorance and degeneracy greater than that which we have already mentioned. If any thing can possibly be imagined more contrary to true religion, it is an opinion which prevailed in the eighth century, that Christians might appease an offended deity by voluntary acts of mortification, or by gifts and oblations lavished on the church; and that people ought to place their confidence in the works and merits of the saints. Piety in this and some succeeding ages consisted in building and embellishing chapels; in endowing monasteries and basilicas; in hunting after the relics of saints and martyrs, and treating them with an absurd and excessive veneration; in procuring the intercession of the saints by rich oblations or superstitious rites; and in pilgrimages to those places which were esteemed holy, particularly to Palestine. The genuine religion of Jesus was now in a great measure unknown both to clergy and people. In this century also the superstitious custom of solitary masses had its origin. These were celebrated by the priest alone in behalf of the souls detained in purgatory, as well as upon other occasions. They were prohibited by the laws of the church, but proved a source of immense wealth to the clergy. Under Charlemagne they were condemned by a synod assembled at Mentz, as the result of avarice and sloth. A new superstition, however, sprung up in the tenth century. It was imagined that Antichrist was to make his appearance upon the earth, and that soon afterwards the world itself would be destroyed. An universal panic ensued. Vast numbers of people, abandoning all their connections in society, and giving over to the churches and monasteries all their worldly effects, repaired to Palestine, where they imagined that Christ would descend from heaven to judge the world; whilst others devoted themselves by a solemn and voluntary oath to the service of the churches, convents, and priesthood. All this proceeded from a notion that the supreme Judge would diminish the severity of their sentence, and look upon them with a more favourable eye, on account of their having made themselves the servants of his ministers. When an eclipse of the sun or moon happened to be visible, the cities were deserted, and their miserable inhabitants, flying for refuge to hollow caverns, hid themselves amongst the craggy rocks, and under the bending summits of steep mountains. The opulent attempted to bribe the saints and the Deity himself by rich donations conferred upon the sacerdotal order, who were looked upon as the immediate vicegerents of heaven. In many places, temples, palaces, and noble edifices, both public and private, were suffered to decay, or were deliberately pulled down, from a notion that they were no longer of any use, as the final dissolution of all things was at hand. In a word, no language is sufficient to express the confusion and despair which tormented the minds of miserable mortals upon that occasion. The general delusion was indeed opposed and combated by the discerning few, who endeavoured to dispel these terrors, and to efface the notion from which they arose in the minds of the people. But their attempts were ineffectual; nor could the dreadful apprehensions of the superstitious multitude be removed until the end of the century, when this terror became one of the accidental causes of the Crusades.

That nothing might now be wanting to complete the system of religion which had overspread all Europe, it was in the eleventh century determined that divine worship should be celebrated in the Latin tongue, though now almost unknown. During the whole of this century, also, Christians were employed in rebuilding and ornamenting their churches, which they had destroyed through the superstitious fears which have already been noticed.

Matters went on in much the same way till the time of the Reformation. The clergy were immersed in sloth, ignorance, and vice; and the laity, imagining themselves able to purchase the pardon of their sins for money, followed the examples of their pastors without remorse. The absurd principle formerly mentioned, that religion consists in acts of austerity, and an unknown mental correspondence with God, produced the most extravagant and ridiculous effects in the conduct of devotees and reputed saints. They not only lived amongst the wild beasts, but also after the manner of these savage animals; they ran naked through the lonely deserts with a furious aspect, and all the agitations of frenzy; they prolonged their wretched life by grass and wild herbs, avoided the sight and conversation of men, remained almost motionless in certain places for several years, exposed to the rigour and inclemency of the seasons, and towards the conclusion of their lives shut themselves up in narrow and miserable cells. But of all the instances of superstitious fanaticism which disgraced the times we are now speaking of, none was held in higher veneration, or excited more the wonder of the multitude, than that of a certain order of men who were called Stylites by the Greeks, and Sancti Columbariums, or Pillar Saints, by the Latins. These were persons of a singular and extravagant turn of mind, who stood motionless on the tops of pillars raised expressly for this exercise of their patience, and remained there for several years amidst the admiration and applause of the populace. The inventor of this strange discipline was one Simeon, a Syrian, who commenced his career by exchanging the agreeable employment of a shepherd for the austerities of a monkish life. He began his devotion on the top of a pillar six cubits high; but as he increased in sanctity, he also augmented the height of his pillar, till, towards the conclusion of his life, he had established his piety on the top of a pillar forty cubits in height. Many of the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine, seduced by a false ambition and an utter ignorance of true religion, followed the example of this fanatic, though not with the same degree of austerity. This superstitious practice began in the fifth century, and continued in the East for nearly six hundred years. The Latins, however, had too much wisdom and prudence to imitate the Syrians and orientals in this whimsical superstition; and when a certain fanatic or impostor named Wulfilaius erected one of these pillars in the country of Treves, and proposed to live upon it after the manner of Simeon, the neighbouring bishops ordered it to be pulled down.

The practices of austere worship and discipline in other respects, however, gained ground throughout all parts of Christendom. Monks of various kinds were to be found in every country in prodigious numbers. But though their discipline was at first exceedingly severe, it became gradually relaxed, and the monks gave in to all the prevailing vices of the times. Other orders succeeded, who pretended to still greater degrees of sanctity, and to reform the abuses of the preceding ones; but these in their turn became corrupted, and fell into the very same vices. Ecclesiastical History.

which they had blamed in others. The most violent animosities, disputes, and hatreds, also reigned amongst the different orders of monks, as well as amongst the clergy of all ranks and degrees, whether we consider them as classed in different bodies, or as individuals of the same body. To enter into a detail of their wranglings and disputations, the methods which each of them took to aggrandise themselves at the expense of their neighbours, and to keep the rest of mankind in subjection, would lead us far beyond the limits prescribed to this rapid sketch. We may only observe, that even the external profession of the austere and absurd piety which took place in the fourth and fifth centuries gradually declined. Some there were, indeed, who boldly opposed the torrent of superstition and depravity which threatened to overflow the whole world; but their opposition proved fruitless, and towards the era of the Reformation all of them had either been silenced or destroyed.

Whilst superstition and degeneracy thus reigned in the West, the absurd and sanguinary doctrines of Mahommed overspread all the East. The rise of this impostor is related elsewhere. (See Arabia.) His successors conquered in order to establish the religion of their apostle; and thus the very name of Christianity was extinguished in many places where it had formerly flourished. The conquests of the Tartars having brought them in contact with the Mahommedans, they greedily embraced the superstitions of that religion, which thus almost entirely overspread the continents of Asia and Africa; and the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 likewise established the faith of the Prophet throughout a considerable part of Europe.

About the beginning of the sixteenth century the Roman pontiffs lived in the utmost tranquillity; nor had they, according to all appearance, any reason at that time to fear an opposition to their authority in any respect, since the commotions which had been raised by the Waldenses, Albigenses, and other sects, were now entirely suppressed. We must not, however, conclude from this apparent tranquillity and security that the measures of the pontiffs were universally applauded. Not only private persons, but even the most powerful princes and sovereign states, exclaimed loudly against the tyranny of the popes, and the unbridled licentiousness of the clergy of all denominations; and they demanded, therefore, a reformation of the church, and the assembling a general council to accomplish that necessary purpose. But these demands were not successful in awakening attention to the full extent of the evil; and though some of the more flagrant abuses were corrected, nothing effectual was done to restore the wholesome rigour of ecclesiastical discipline. Besides, these complaints proceeded from persons who never entertained any doubt respecting the supreme authority of the pope in religious matters, and who consequently, instead of attempting themselves to bring about the reformation which they so ardently desired, remained inactive, looking for redress to the court of Rome, or to a general council. But whilst the reform appeared to be at a great distance, it suddenly arose from a quarter whence it was not at all expected. A single person, Martin Luther, a monk of the order of St Augustin, ventured to oppose himself to the whole weight of papal power and authority. This bold attempt was first publicly made on the 30th of September 1517; and notwithstanding all the efforts of the pope and his adherents, the doctrines of Luther continued daily to gain ground. Others, also, encouraged by his success, lent their assistance in the great and important work of reformation, which at length produced churches, founded upon principles altogether different from that of Rome.

But on this subject it is unnecessary here to enter into particulars. We shall therefore conclude this section with a few remarks on the power of the pope, ecclesiastically considered.

The ecclesiastical power of the pope may be considered under three different aspects: his power and privileges as bishop of the diocese of Rome; his power and privileges as patriarch of the West; and his power, privileges, and rank, as supreme head of the Catholic church. As, however, it is generally in the last capacity that the pope is considered in this country, we may observe, in the first place, that the actual state of the papal power is the same now as it ever was; it can never change, although the exercise of it may vary, and has varied, according to circumstances. The power of the pope, though, in the belief of the Catholic church, universally acknowledged and respected from the beginning, was less felt in the primitive ages, when the lives and circumstances of Christians were such as seldom to call for any other interference than that of their immediate ecclesiastical superiors; but, in proportion as abuses crept in, and disputes, schisms, and heresies arose, this power was exercised with a greater degree of activity, and naturally attracted a greater share of public attention. Hence it was exerted to its fullest extent during those ages of ignorance and anarchy into which Europe was thrown by the invasions of the different hordes of barbarians which followed the breaking up of the Roman empire. But, in proportion as order has been restored, and a greater degree of civilization introduced, the exercise of the power of the pope as head of the Catholic church has become more limited, because its interposition is less called for. In all ages, however, the ecclesiastical power inherent in the pope as head of the Catholic church has been the same, and must ever be so, in the belief of that church, because, according to its creed, the pope holds his power from God, through a continued succession of predecessors downwards, and can transmit to his successors in office neither more nor less than what he has received. Now, the doctrine of the Catholic church on the authority of the pope as its head may be stated, in general terms, to be what it was defined in the tenth session of the council of Florence, viz. "That full power was delegated to the bishop of Rome, in the person of St Peter, to feed, regulate, and govern the universal church, as expressed in the general councils and holy canons."

The doctrine of this council respecting the supremacy of the pope may be stated in the words of Mr Butler, as contained in his Book of the Roman Catholic Church, upon the accuracy of which, as far as doctrine is concerned, the most implicit reliance may, we believe, be placed. "It is an article of the Roman Catholic faith," says he, "that the pope has, by divine right, 1st, a supremacy of rank; 2d, a supremacy of jurisdiction in the spiritual concerns of the Roman Catholic church; and, 3d, the principal authority in defining articles of faith. In consequence of these prerogatives, the pope holds a rank splendidly pre-eminent over the highest dignitaries of the church; he has a right to convene councils, and preside over them by himself or his legates, and to confirm the election of bishops. Every ecclesiastical cause may be brought before him, as the last resort, by appeal; he may promulgate definitions and formularies of faith to the universal church; and when the general body, or a great majority of her prelates, have assented to them, either by formal consent or tacit assent, all her members are bound to acquiesce in them. 'Rome,' they say, 'in such a case, has spoken, and the cause is determined.' To the pope, in the opinion of all Roman Catholics, belongs also a general superintendence of the concerns of the church; a right, when the canons provide no line of action, to direct the proceedings, and, in extraordinary cases, to act in opposition to the canons. In those spiritual concerns in which, by strict right, his au- These are the points which, as there is no dispute about them, are admitted and believed by the Catholic church. As to the different opinions of different divines, every Catholic is at liberty to adopt or reject them, according as his own judgment and reason may dictate. Has the pope a controlling power over the whole church, should she chance to oppose his decrees, and, consequently, over a general council, her representative? Has he the same power, even in ordinary cases, over the canons of the universal church? Has he the power of calling all spiritual causes to his cognisance; of evoking to himself, or to judges appointed by him, any cause actually depending in an ecclesiastical court? Has he the power of constituting and deposing bishops; of conferring all ecclesiastical dignities and benefices, in or out of his dominions, by paramount authority? Is he personally infallible when he undertakes to issue a solemn decision upon any point of faith? In answer to these interrogatories, some say, yes; others say, no. Both opinions are tolerated by the Catholic church; but, according to Butler, neither speaks its faith. As to the question, whether the pope has a divine right to the exercise, indirectly at least, of temporal power, for effecting a spiritual good, it is no longer a subject of discussion, since all parties have acquiesced in the opinion of those who maintained that he has not; a proof of which was given to Mr Pitt in 1788, in the answers which were returned to his questions upon that head by the universities of Louvain, Douay, Sorbonne, Alcala, and Salamanca.

COMPOSITION OF HISTORY.

History has been defined, philosophy teaching by examples. But this definition is too artificial. History may exist apart from philosophy, just as philosophy may exist apart from history. The alliance of these two is natural, but not necessary. History, considered as a faithful record of past experience, is no doubt fertile in instruction; it is a great magazine of facts from which, reasoning inductively, important conclusions may be deduced. But the lights which the experience of the past may be made to supply for the conduct of the future must not in strictness be confounded with the elements or materials out of which they are struck; in other words, it is most desirable to distinguish between the facts which it is the peculiar business of history to record, and the inferences or general truths which they are calculated to evolve. Narration is the primary, philosophising only the secondary object of history. Everything depends upon the accurate arrangement and detail of events; on preserving unbroken the sequence which nature has established, and, at the same time, distinguishing between mere coincidence in time or in place, and accidental or necessary connection. Hence radical truth is the foundation of history, the only basis upon which a solid superstructure can be reared. But historical truth consists of two parts; first, not to state what is in its own nature false; and, secondly, not to omit anything which is true, and necessary to place the subject in a clear and proper light. It is possible to tell the truth, and yet to create a most erroneous impression by not telling the whole truth. The most dangerous, because the most insidious, mode of corrupting history and misleading the judgments of mankind, is the suppression or concealment of important circumstances, which, if known, might give a totally different complexion to the actions or events recorded; and, next to this in pernicious effect, is the less glaring but equally dishonest artifice of giving a disproportionate prominence to one feature of a character, or one aspect of a subject, whilst others, which truth requires to be brought out in commensurate fulness and composition, relief, are either thrown into the shade, or so slightly touched as almost to escape observation. Of this last vice, which, more than any other, is calculated to taint the stream of history, Gibbon, in his narrative of the progressive diffusion of Christianity, presents a notorious and highly censurable example; exaggerating the faults, follies, and errors of the early professors of that faith, without making any account of their heroic fortitude under suffering and persecution, and reserving all his sympathies for material grandeur and barbaric splendour, whilst moral greatness is treated with cold indifference or sarcastic disdain.

But whilst strict truth is thus the grand and sole object of history, or that which distinguishes it from romance on the one hand, and mere party declamation on the other, it must be confessed that nothing is of more difficult attainment, and that the highest faculties of the human mind, moral as well as intellectual, are essentially requisite to him who enters upon the search of it with a view to enlighten and instruct mankind. On all subjects with which the interests, the passions, and the prejudices of men naturally connect themselves, and which are consequently viewed by different observers through different media, we must of course be prepared to expect not only the most opposite opinions, but also the most discordant statements; what is solemnly affirmed by one party or class will be denied with equal emphasis by another; the same event will be presented under the most incongruous aspects, the same character delineated in the most opposite colours; what is found in one authority may be sought for in vain in another; what this writer represents as of the last importance, another may treat as of no moment whatever; whilst the misconceptions of ignorance, uniting with the honest prejudices of party, and the studied misrepresentations of interest or artifice, lend their aid to augment the difficulties and embarrassments which obstruct the search for truth in this entangled and bewildering region. Seeing, then, that it is from such materials that history must be written, it will not be difficult to form a general estimate of the qualities which are essential to constitute an historian in the only just sense of the term. It is not merely necessary that he should be without bias himself, but that he should be capable of making due allowances for all the leanings and prejudices, whether religious, political, or national, which are calculated more or less to affect the judgments and opinions of other men. He must possess an intimate acquaintance with the laws of evidence, or those tests by the application of which the quality or value of evidence, of whatever description, may be ascertained and determined. To extract the truth from a mass of conflicting testimony is one of the most refined and difficult operations which the human mind can be called to perform. It implies patient research, vigilant attention, careful comparison, nice discrimination, prompt perception, and an aptitude for pursuing to their consequences all sorts of investigations, whether direct or collateral; yet this operation the historian, like the judge before whom issues of fact are sent to be tried, is continually required to perform, and that too in circumstances often far more difficult and complicated. The cases which come before the judge arise, for the most part, out of recent occurrences, in the investigation of which many facilities are supplied; those which the historian is called to unravel are frequently overshadowed by the obscurity, and perplexed by the accumulated misrepresentations, of ages. Judicial inquiries commonly relate to a single transaction or set of transactions connected with the ordinary affairs of human life, in which all have more or less experience. Historical researches frequently embrace systems of policy or religion, by which not merely the opinions, but the destinies of mankind, may have been powerfully affected, either for good or for evil: they comprehend government, laws, commerce, agriculture, arts, sciences, in different states of advancement, with those mighty changes in the fortunes of nations which are effected by war and revolutions, as well as the more gradual modifications superinduced on society by the slow and silent operation of physical, moral, and political causes. The judge plays his part upon a narrow theatre, where his business is merely to unravel a little plot, all the circumstances of which are, in general, brought pretty fully before him. The historian has to explore, and, as it were, map out, an entire country, to unfold a thousand mysteries, to correct a vast multiplicity of errors, and to puzzle his way through the gloom of an obscure and entangled region, where the landmarks are few, and often calculated to mislead.

From all this, then, it will not be difficult to form a general idea of the duties of an historian, as well as of the qualities and accomplishments which are indispensable to fit him for discharging them in a proper manner. The first, and by far the most important of these, is laborious research and patient investigation. Many of the most gifted men who have applied themselves to the composition of history, have not only failed to attain the truth, but have adopted and given currency to falsehood, because they wanted the perseverance necessary for discovering the one and detecting the other. Of this Hume presents a conspicuous and instructive example. That he was deeply prejudiced is known to all; but his indolence has proved infinitely more detrimental to his historical reputation than even his partiality; it has betrayed him into errors the most gross, and led him to commit injustice the most scandalous. The very authorities to which he refers frequently disprove his statements, and others within his reach would have enabled him to discover the truth if he had been at the pains to seek for it, as well as to correct the errors which he had committed. But he was careless of facts, or at least shrunk from the labour necessary to ascertain them; in general he took the statements of the writers upon his own side as he found them, and, without examination or comparison, scrupled not to hold up to derision and contempt some of the purest and brightest names in English history. He misapplied his great talents, and threw around the grossest perversions of English history all the fascination of his delightful style, and sometimes also the attraction of a profound philosophy. His authority as an historian, however, has been rudely shaken by the searching criticism of Mr Brodie, who, in exposing the errors and misrepresentations of Hume, has, at the same time, done justice to the illustrious men, maligned and defamed by the apologist of the house of Stuart. As a further illustration of his carelessness, if not bad faith, we may refer to Mr Tytler's Life of Sir Walter Raleigh, in which it is conclusively shown that Hume might, from the very authorities to which he has referred, have discovered the falsehood of the charges which he has brought against that illustrious but unfortunate victim of royal injustice, whose memory he has sought to load with unmerited obloquy. In this case, the truth was at his hand, had he given himself the smallest trouble to look for it.

The next quality which we shall mention as essential to an historian is strict probity. We do not mean to affirm that prejudice is necessarily dishonest, however much it may tend to blind the understanding and warp the judgment. Where it is avowed or manifest, the reader is thereby put on his guard, and, being forewarned, is seldom deceived. But there is a species of dishonesty which tends more than any other to corrupt the purity of history, yet, by reason of its latent and insidious character, frequently escapes detection, and indeed can seldom be exposed by definite arguments. We refer particularly to the artifice by which the whole gist and bearing of a narrative is insensibly inclined, in favour perhaps of the very individual whose vices or crimes are occasionally exposed with ostentatious fairness and candour, though seldom without the charitable suggestion of some palliating or mitigating circumstance to qualify the sentiments which the statement itself is calculated to awaken. Take, for instance, the history of Scotland by Dr Robertson. In that eloquent and masterly performance, the vices, follies, and crimes of Queen Mary are neither concealed nor directly extenuated; and subjoined to it there is a dissertation on the murder of Darnley, in which the question of her guilty participation in that atrocious crime is for ever put to rest. But notwithstanding all this, the general tendency and effect of the work is decidedly in her favour; and, when the final balance is struck, the remembrance of her guilt is absorbed in sympathy for her misfortunes. We are suffered gradually to lose sight of the one, and are continually reminded of the other. She is, in fact, the heroine of the story, in whom all the interest ultimately centres. By an insensible transition, the criminal, who had dishonoured her station and her sex, is converted into a victim and a martyr. We see before us only an injured queen, who, after an imprisonment of unexampled duration, is at length dragged forth to end her sufferings and her sorrows on the block. The understanding, in fact, is misled through the heart, and the moral judgment is perverted by artfully calling into play some of the best feelings of humanity. Now, in a romance, all this might be highly fitting and proper, because there the grand object is to interest us deeply in favour of the fortunes of the principal personage displayed on the canvass of the romancer. But in a work of history, truth should be exhibited in severe and stern simplicity, not dressed in the fairy attire of fiction, or concealed under the trappings and pageantry of worldly greatness. If an erroneous impression be deliberately and artfully produced, it matters little, in a question of historical probity, how or by what means that is effected; but it may be truly said that honest and avowed prejudice is immeasurably less injurious to the cause of truth than those ingenious but insidious devices which, like that here mentioned, array the feelings against the judgment, and call forth the emotions of the heart, only to counteract the perceptions of the understanding.

Cicero has laid it down that an accomplished orator should be possessed of almost universal knowledge. The same thing applies with much greater force to the historian, who has to treat of almost every subject which is interesting or important to mankind; science, philosophy, legislation, government, religion, war, commerce, art, and industry. On this standard Gibbon laboured for years to form himself, and it must be confessed that, in the acquisitions necessary for the performance of the mighty task which he had prescribed to himself, he stands almost alone amongst modern historians. His learning was equally varied and profound, and the more it is explored the higher will be the estimate formed, not only of the extent of his treasures, but also of the judgment and skill with which these are almost invariably brought to bear upon the subject before him, whatever it may be. Nor has his example proved fruitless or unavailing. The cultivation of the historical sciences, which had so long been neglected, has latterly engaged the attention and occupied the labours of some of the first minds in Europe; of men who, to the investigations which such pursuits render necessary, have brought all the resources of deep learning and original thought, of profound philosophy, and an intimate acquaintance with the true interests of states. In the hands of Von Hammer light has been shed on many of the darkest passages of Ottoman history; Heeren has traced, with great clearness, sagacity, and learning, the intercommunications of ancient nations, and the routes pursued by ancient commerce; and Niebuhr, having dissipated the mist of fable and romance which overshadowed the early history of Rome, has reduced the exaggerations of chroniclers and poets to their true dimensions, and laid a foundation for all ages, though, unfortunately, without being permitted to raise the superstructure. Michaud's *Histoire des Croisades* is also a work of extensive research and profound investigation, in which the various resources afforded by the science of criticism have been employed to rectify errors, and to shed a new and steady light on what was formerly obscure; whilst new views or new facts, derived from sources previously unexplored, are unfolded in almost every page. It is thus that history ought to be written, if intended to be instructive. By applying the powerful instrument of an enlightened and philosophical criticism, we shall no doubt dispel almost every ingredient allied to the marvellous, and sadly disenchant the gorgeous creations of romance; but truth, in her divine simplicity, will remain to atone for the destruction of these airy and unsubstantial fabrics, and to command the respect and homage of enlightened worshippers. We have fallen upon an utilitarian age, when men, having ceased to pursue shadows, seek for the substance of knowledge, when glitter and tinsel are disregarded, when amusement is sought through the medium of instruction, and when nothing is considered as agreeable which is altogether useless. Besides, as mankind rise in political importance, and feel that they have rights to exercise, interests to advance, and privileges to defend, their desire to seek lessons for the future in the experience of the past receives a corresponding increase; they lose their relish for romance, and acquire a taste for simple, unadulterated truth, which is alone calculated to extend their knowledge and promote their happiness.

**History of Nature, or Natural History.** See **Natural History.**

**HISTRIO,** in the ancient drama, signified an actor or comedian; but more especially a pantomime, who exhibited his part by gestures and dancing. Livy informs us that the histriones were brought to Rome from Etruria, in the year of the city 891.

**HIT,** a village of Irak Arabia, situated on a river of the same name, which is a tributary of the Euphrates. There are abundant pits of bitumen in the neighbourhood, from which it is supposed that supplies were derived for the construction of ancient Babylon.

**HITCHEN,** a town in the county of Hertford, which gives its name to the hundred, thirty-four miles from London. It was once of some note for its manufactures, but none is left except that of making malt. It is a well-built town, with a good market held on Tuesday, at which much corn is sold. The inhabitants amounted in 1801 to 3161, in 1811 to 3608, in 1821 to 4486, and in 1831 to 5211.

**HITTITES,** the descendants of Heth. See **Heth.**

**HIVE,** a convenient receptacle for bees. See **Bee.**

**HIVITES,** a people descended from Canaan, who dwelt at first in the country afterwards possessed by the Caphtorims or Philistines.