formed the conclusion that his breath could call into life the Roman republic; and on that conclusion he engaged in the attempt-the hopeless attempt-to resuscitate the dead.

I have no more space for Rienzi's history than for Julian's; nor do I need to dwell upon more than an incident or two of his most remarkable and dramatic career. "Rienzi" (I am quoting a phrase of Sismondi which reads like a sarcasm) "had not the spirit of a Roman warrior. He did not find in himself that valour which he admired in the ancients." And accordingly he did not prove equal to the part he had assumed. He was in fact more of an artist than a hero. He was for renewing the forms of ancient in the spirit of modern Italy. His first invocation to revolt was the exhibition of a picture,insurrection recommended artistically by illustrations. Again in the year 1348, when his power was on the wane, according to the Abbé de Sade, he caused an angel bearing the arms of Rome, to be painted on the walls of the church of St. Mary Magdalen, and this angel to be represented as holding in one hand a cross surmounted by a dove, and treading under foot an asp, a basilisk, a lion, and a dragon, Waiting to know the effect of this device as against his enemies, when he saw that the people covered it with mud, he comprehended that his ascendency was over and fled to Naples. His fall had been accelerated by the paucity of his resources. His principal expedient in time of difficulty was to ring the town bell, and when that failed him, he was prostrate. He

had thought to found a second Rome by relying on what the first Rome most despised—its mob. Retribution came at length in a terrible hour when, after his return and second fall, he had himself to confront this mob at the foot of the staircase of the Capitol. The scene as described by Sismondi, of impending vengeance but of mutual suspense, is one of the most striking in history.

This impressive catastrophe could not disabuse Petrarch of his predilection for revivals. If he was disappointed of a Tribune, he was nevertheless willing to put up with an Augustus. He was indifferent to the master, provided it was an antique. There is a long and amusing account of Petrarch's endeavours and fruitless negotiations to induce the emperor to reside in Rome. But the emperor was more concerned for his own convenience than for Petrarch's theories, and the design of the elegant pedant was never accomplished. It is worthy of remark how repeatedly these conceptions of Petrarch and Rienzi have reappeared in Italian history. Even at the last revolution in numerous instances, the ancient formula were still influential; sedition asserted its derivation from the Gracchi, and the assassin who struck Rome's most able statesman was compared in the popular imagination to the Brutus who stabbed Cæsar.

An artistic people like the Italian is more than ordinarily prone to this kind of imitation, but it is not their characteristic exclusively, as the next example I shall cite sufficiently proves, for it belongs to our own history.

Probably no one at first thought would dream of accusing the heavy English Puritans of the seventeenth century of a like disposition; but researches in which I have humbly participated have established this tendency, or have at all events brought it into its proper prominence. We should bear in mind in speaking of the Puritans, that their projects were repeatedly curtailed in England, and that in order to see their sect in its normal state of development, it is necessary to cross to the other side of the Atlantic. On the shores of the New World where they were relieved from the surveillance of the home government, and did that which was right in their own eyes, it will be found that they took some very decided steps in avowed imitation of the Jewish Theocracy.

Of course I am not merely referring here to their preference in a religious sense for the older Testament; I mean that the political constitution of their settlements was conformed as closely as possible to the example of the Hebrews. In the first place (I am speaking now of Massachusetts), at the same time that they had a strict and severe test of churchmanship, their church and state were identical. No one could be a member of the latter who was not a member of the former. The principle of a Theocracy was the fundamental principle of the Massachusetts polity, and on this all its earliest institutions were founded.

When its authors were framing their original code, it was at first proposed to make all crimes punishable

by death, which were made so punishable by the law of Moses. But ultimately this intention was modified, and only a part of the capital provisions of the Mosaic law was adopted. At the same time no capital punishment was inflicted for which a precedent could not be found in the Pentateuch. The power of the court to issue warrants was deduced from a passage in Joshua, and the propriety of registering their acts from Kings. The courts of Massachusetts were permitted to have secretaries, because there was a case in point of "Elihoreph and Ahiah the sons of Shisha, scribes; and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud Recorder." In Connecticut, which in many particulars copied from Massachusetts, there was no jury system because there was no warrant for juries in the Scriptures. Sundry minute restrictions of domestic usages were also derived in spirit from the same originals.

I have no time to show the working of this design, or I might illustrate the grim and dreary tyranny which in consequence of this view prevailed in New England. The deaths and mutilations which were inflicted for religious opinions in settlements which are popularly imagined as having been founded for liberty of conscience, were partially due to this Jewish restoration. I will only mention that the experiment was found intolerable in less than half a century from its first institution.

In connexion with the Puritans, I have next to mention an example of the same tendency, operating in a different direction. As Mr. Macaulay has re

THE REGICIDE MARTEN.

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marked, there was a class of men associated with the Puritans in the English Revolution, yet not to be confounded with them, who partook their hostility to the court and church, but adopted the institutions of Rome and the heroes of Plutarch for their model. The regicide Marten was one of this class, of whom Bishop Burnet said, very appropriately, that "Harry Marten was all his life a most violent enemy to monarchy, but all that he moved for was upon Greek and Roman principles." Of numerous others who "moved" upon similar principles, I may particularise Edmund Ludlow, Bradshaw, and Wildman; but the principal exponents of the class in a literary form are the works of Sydney and Harrington. Algernon Sydney's Discourses on Government,' and Harrington's Oceana,' peculiarly illustrate their attachment to classic precedents. I must observe of these men, that as they were never in a majority, they were never enabled to carry their views into action. "At that time," says Mrs. Hutchinson, "almost every man was fancying a form of government, and angry that his invention took not place." And included in this category the English republicans contributed more exiles and confessors than legislators. But I should say of many of them, and especially of Marten, that if they were the dupes of an erudite fanaticism, they were nevertheless conspicuous for their shrewd English sense; and as gentlemen of character, talents, and education, if they committed errors they had the capacity to rectify them.