pleasure, that crisis, when the whole trading interest of this empire, crammed into your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from your resolutions. When at length you had determined in their favour, and your doors thrown open shewed them the figure of their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transport. They jumped upon him like children on a long absent father. They clung about him as captives about their redeemer. All England, all America, joined to his applause. I do not know how others feel; but if I had stood in that situation, I never would have exchanged it for all that kings in their profusion could bestow. I did hope that that day's danger and honour would have been a bond to hold us all together for ever. But alas! that, with other pleasing visions, is long since vanished. E. BURKE 403. THE VILLA PLINIANA ON THE LAKE OF COMO. This house, which was once a magnificent palace, and is now half in ruins, we are endeavouring to procure. It is built upon terraces raised from the bottom of the lake, together with its garden, at the foot of a semicircular precipice, overshadowed by profound forests of chestnut. The scene from the colonnade is the most extraordinary, at once, and the most lovely that eye ever beheld. On one side is the mountain, and immediately over you are clusters of cypress-trees of an astonishing height, which seem to pierce the sky. Above you, from among the clouds, as it were, decends a waterfall of immense size, broken by the woody rocks into a thousand channels to the lake. On the other side is seen the blue extent of the lake and the mountains, speckled with sails and spires. The apartments of the Pliniana are immensely large, but ill-furnished and antique. The terraces, which overlook the lake, and conduct under the shade of such immense laurel-trees as deserve the epithet of Pythian, are most delightful. We staid at Como two days, and have now returned to Milan, waiting the issue of our negotiation about a house. Como is only six leagues from Milan, and its mountains are seen from the cathedral. This cathedral is a most astonishing work of art. It is built of white marble, and cut into pinnacles of immense height, and the utmost delicacy of workmanship, and loaded with sculpture. The effect of it, piercing the solid blue with those groups of dazzling spires, relieved by the serene depth of this Italian heaven, or by moonlight when the stars seem gathered among those clustered shapes, is beyond anything I had imagined architecture capable of producing. P. B. SHELLEY 404. REPULSE OF THE TLASCALANS BY CORTES, A.D. 1519. Slowly and stealthily the Indians advanced, while the Christian camp, hushed in profound silence, seemed to them buried in slumber. But no sooner had they reached the slope of the rising ground, than they were astonished by the deep battle-cry of the Spaniards, followed by the instantaneous apparition of the whole army, as they sallied forth from the works, and poured down the sides of the hill. Brandishing aloft their weapons, they seemed to the troubled fancies of the Tlascalans, like so many spectres or demons hurrying to and fro in mid air, while the uncertain light magnified their numbers, and expanded the horse and his rider into gigantic and unearthly dimensions. Scarcely waiting the shock of their enemy, the panic-struck barbarians let off a feeble volley of arrows, and offering no other resistance, fled rapidly and tumultuously across the plain. W. H. PRESCOTT GRESS. 405. THE SUCCESSIVE STAGES OF INTELLECTUAL PRONow commences the reign of judgment or reason; we begin to find little pleasure but in comparing arguments, stating propositions, disentangling perplexities, clearing ambiguities, and deducing consequences. The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration. Whatever may lull vigilance, or mislead attention, is contemptuously rejected, and every disguise in which error may be concealed, is carefully observed, till by degrees a certain number of incontestable or unsuspected propositions are established, and at last concatenated into arguments, or compacted into systems. At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new conquests or excursions. This is the age of recollection and narrative; the opinions are settled, and the avenues of appre hension shut against any new intelligence; the days that are to follow must pass in the inculcation of precepts already collected, and assertion of tenets already received; nothing is henceforward so odious as opposition, so insolent as doubt, or so dangerous as novelty. 406. DEATH OF NICHOLAS DI RIENZI, A.D. 1354. In the death as in the life of Rienzi the hero and the coward were strangely mingled. When the Capitol was invested by a furious multitude, when he was basely deserted by his civil and military servants, the intrepid senator, waving the banner of liberty, presented himself on the balcony, addressed his eloquence to the various passions of the Romans, and laboured to persuade them, that in the same cause himself and the republic must either stand or fall. His oration was interrupted by a volley of imprecations and stones; and after an arrow had pierced his head, he sank into abject despair, and fled weeping to the inner chambers, from whence he was let down by a sheet before the windows of the prison. Destitute of aid or hope, he was besieged till the evening: the doors of the Capitol were destroyed with axes and fire; and while the senator attempted to escape in a plebeian habit, he was discovered and dragged to the platform of the palace, the fatal scene of his judgments and executions. A whole hour, without voice or motion, he stood among the multitude nearly naked and half dead; their rage was hushed into curiosity and wonder: the last feelings of reverence and compassion yet struggled in his favour; and they might have prevailed, if a bold assassin had not plunged a dagger in his breast. He fell senseless with the first stroke; the impotent revenge of his enemies inflicted a thousand wounds; and the senator's body was abandoned to the dogs, to the Jews, and to the flames. Posterity will compare the virtues and failings of this extraordinary man; but in a long period of anarchy and servitude, the name of Rienzi has often been celebrated as the deliverer of his country, and the last of the Roman patriots. E. GIBBON 407. DEVOTED PATRIOTISM. I conceive myself more particularly bound than any other person to promote the interest of my country, even with the sacrifice of my life. With this full intention I now go; and perhaps it may be the will of God, that as this war was begun in the blood of my brother and of myself, it may now by my means be concluded. All that I desire is, that my life and my death, my prosperity and my misfortunes, may contribute towards the welfare of my native place. Should the result be answerable to my wishes, I shall rejoice in having obtained peace to my country, and security to myself. Should it prove otherwise, my misfortunes will be alleviated by the idea that they were requisite for my country's welfare; for if our adversaries aim only at my destruction, I shall be in their power; and if their views extend further, they will then be fully understood. In the latter case, I doubt not that all my fellow-citizens will unite in defending their liberties to the last extremity, and I trust with the same success as, by the favour of God, our ancestors have heretofore done. REPUTATION. 408. DISADVANTAGES OF AN EXALTED But farther, a man whose extraordinary reputation thus lifts him up to the notice and observation of mankind, draws a multitude of eyes upon him that will narrowly inspect every part of him, consider him nicely in all views, and not be a little pleased when they have taken him in the worst and most disadvantageous light. There are many who find a pleasure in contradicting the common reports of fame, and in spreading abroad the weaknesses of an exalted character. They publish their ill-natured discoveries with a secret pride, and applaud themselves for the singularity of their judgment which has searched deeper than others, detected what the rest of the world have overlooked, and found a flaw in what the generality of mankind admires. Others there are who proclaim the errors and infirmities of a great man with an inward satisfaction and complacency, if they discover none of the like errors and infirmities in themselves; for while they are exposing another's weaknesses, they are tacitly aiming at their own commendations, who are not subject to the like infirmities, and are apt to be transported with a secret kind of vanity to see themselves superior in some respects to one of a sublime and celebrated reputation. Nay, it very often happens, that none are more industrious in publishing the blemishes of an extraordinary reputation, than such as lie open to the same censures in their own characters, as either hoping to excuse their own defects by the authority of so high an example, or raising an imaginary applause to them selves for resembling a person of an exalted reputation, though in the blameable parts of his character. J. ADDISON 409. POLITICAL DISCONTENTS—EASILY EXCITED IN THE BEST CONSTITUTED GOVERNMENTS. Great discontents frequently arise in the best constituted governments from causes which no human wisdom can foresee, and no human power can prevent. They occur at uncertain periods which are commonly not far asunder. Governments of all kinds are administered only by men; and great mistakes, tending to inflame these discontents, may occur. The indecision of those who happen to rule at the critical time, their supine neglect, or their precipitate and ill-judged attention, may aggravate the public misfortunes. In such a state of things, the principles, now only sown, will shoot out and vegetate in full luxuriance. In such circumstances the minds of the people become sore and ulcerated. They are put out of humour with all public men and all public parties; they are fatigued with their dissensions; they are irritated at their coalitions; they are easily made to believe (what much pains are taken to make them believe) that all oppositions are factious, and all courtiers base and servile. From their disgust at men, they are soon led to quarrel with their frame of government, which they presume gives nourishment to the vices, real or supposed, of those who administer in it. Mistaking malignity for sagacity, they are soon led to cast off all hope from a good administration of affairs, and come to think that all reformation depends, not on the change of actors, but upon an alteration in the machinery. E. BURKE 410. MODERATION IN BOTH CIRCUMSTANCES. It is certainly the proper education we should give ourselves, to be prepared for the ill events and accidents we are to meet with in a life sentenced to be a scene of sorrow: but instead of this expectation, we soften ourselves with prospects of constant delight, and destroy in our minds the seeds of fortitude and virtue, which should support us in hours of anguish. The constant pursuit of pleasure has in it something insolent and improper for our being. There is a pretty sober liveliness in the ode of Horace to Delius, where |