rish of a comet's drive, and the flavour of carp in the Moon's lakes! To construct a balloon of sufficient diameter, I proposed to buy the canvas used in making the Temple of Concord a few years ago, or to form a collection of all the old silk parasols in the kingdom. Neonous remarked, that no cargo would be required, except a few phials of that celebrated German elixir which is said to answer all the purposes of meat and drink, as no inns can be found in the air; cork hats, coats of Indian rubber, and head-dresses of spun-glass, or a little Tricosian fluid, as artificial appendages might be apt to change cofour by the way. This hint alarmed the lady, and induced her to ask what kind of hair distinguished the Moon's people." Madam," replied Neonous, very gravely, "in some of the lunar provinces, they have no heads. The Moon is a kind of workshop, from whence Nature sends men like bundles of canes, to be headed with brass, gold, or tortoiseshell, in this world.”—Lady Townly cast a melancholy glance at her husband, which seemed to imply that she considered herself a twig of myrtle tied to a crabstick; while Sir Pertinax drily enquired if any trees ornamented the Moon, and how they grew." With their roots upwards, no doubt!" interposed his wife, “"if they live upon air; and if, as Fontenelle says, the atmosphere affords no rain, they are probably nursed by a steam-engine. Then, with another expressive glance, she hoped the Moon contained an infirmary for fools, and was told that a larger planet seemed to be kept for their accommodation. In the eagerness of her enterprising spirit, she insisted upon shewing our Arctic philosopher a machine constructed by her father, my learned friend Dr. Blinkensop. This machine, which for certain reasons he had placed on the roof of the house, resembled a canoe in shape and Lady Towaly having conducted Neonous to view it, suggested that it might be attached to their balloon, to serve as the car or parachute. They scated themselves in it, to consider and ascertain its fitness perfectly; but at that unfortunate moment, Dr. Blinkensop being mentally agitated by the philosophic questions connected with the Arctic expe dition, dreamed that the Isabella was split on an ice rock. Starting up in his sleep, he ran to the roof, cut the

ropes which held his new-invented lifeboat, and the two projectors descended in it to the ground, as a Dutch philosopher one did in a boat which he had prepared for a second deluge. Sir Pertinax was rather surprised to find his wife had rolled from the roof to the area as safely in her canoe as a celebrated antiquarian is said to have fallen down-stairs in a vase of true Pompeiian clay. But our Arctic Islander's skull seems incurably fractured, though the Professor endeavoured to arrange the fragments according to the art of French chirur gery, and to cement them with Vancouver's iron-glue. My only consolation is to preserve this history of the week he spent in London, and to translate the brief record of his colony's origiu, which I received from him, and shall transmit to you as the last memorial of his existence.

THE FIRST NIGHT

OF

"LE NOTTI ROMANE."

TRANSLATED BY J. J.

(Continued from page 219.)

DIALOGUE III.

V.

Cæsar exposes the Corruptions of the Republic, and maintains the Necessity of Monarchy.

RUTUS ended, and Cæsar, turning

to the multitude, began:"If I, Julius Cæsar, by my liberality, my triumphs, my magnanimity, have ever acquired any favour among ye, I entreat you, in this state of death, to give me this single testimony of it -a patient hearing. If I have been guilty, the dagger of this man and his associates has satisfied your anger with a dreadful vengeance; allow me then the privilege never denied to a malefactor, of repelling the accusation by candid and respectful argument"-then he addressed himself to Brutus, and thus proceeded :- Thou hast declared the reasons which induced thee to deprive me of life, and relieve Rome as from a fatal incumbrance; permit me to allege those which induced me to exalt myself above the equal rank of Citizen. And as the first, and root of all, this -that Rome was then brought to that condition, that whoever possessed a superiority of talent, must, of necessity, choose one of these two_condi

tions to command imperiously, or servilely obey. The people, therefore, could not form a more rational desire, than that of sheltering themselves from the injuries of a presuming and wanton licentiousness under the government of a Supreme Moderator! Oppressions not recent or few, but numberless, inveterate, incurable, and destructive, had not merely reduced true liberty to a state of lassitude, but long before our birth, she had expired. And to confirm the truth of my assertions, recollect that almost an age before my fall, the audacity of Curiasius, tribune of the people, had arisen to that degree of daring, as to threaten the two Consuls, Scipio Nascia and D. Junius Brutus, with imprisonment. Such was the effect of that popular violence, induced by an absurd species of license, under the name of liberty.

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Scarcely had a lustre elapsed after this unhappy Consulate, when in the Tribunate of the Gracchi, commenced not merely discords, but civil wars, the result of a general state of extreme and incorrigible depravation, of which, if the violent death of the Grac chi had not of itself been sufficient proof, soon after came to Rome a barbarian King to confirm it. I speak of Jugurtha, the usurper of the Numidian throne, by the treacherous murder of his brethren. Our Consuls, Scaurus and Calpurnius, sent to avenge it, returned conquered-by his money. Summoned afterward to Rome to defend his cause, by a Senate whom he had already corrupted by his usurped treasures, he appeared with a countenance confident and serene-conscious of the baseness of his judges. Even while these charges of parricide hung over him unrepelled, he openly committed in this city another, in the person of Massiva, another brother, who in vain sought shelter from his assassinating sword. But for this and his innumerable other crimes, the only punishment pronounced by the Senate was, that he should depart. At which connivance the guilty monarch himself was so surprised, that on leaving the city he looked back on its walls, and uttered that opprobrious, but merited, sentence, Venal city! thou wantest but a purchaser to transfer thee to other hands.' Such, indeed, was its state of depravation, that if any citizen was found untainted with

the general corruption, he became an object of public insult and derision; and therefore Q. Metellus Numidicus, then Censor, whose breast was still warm with ancient virtue, was so hated, that the Tribune C. Asinius seized him on the high road in the middle of the day, and would have dragged him to the Tarpeian Rock, had he not been prevented by some one who met him on the way. The person of the Censor had, however, suffered such violence in the tumult, that the blood gushed from his ears. So revolting was his virtue, that not being able to endure even the countenance of that virtuous man, the Tribune Saturninus determined to insult him with the most open and audacious injustice. Not eloquence and dignity

but stones, dirt, and daggers, prevailed in the Comitium. In that assembly of peace, and liberal counsel, the ferocious Tribune, leader of the foolish mob, with murderous intention rushed toward Metellus, who withdrew to the Capitol; thither he pursued him, resolved to kill him where but a little before he had triumphed, nor until rivers of civil blood had run from the summit of the hill was his precious life saved by the Patricians from the attacks of the atrocious mob. He at length, insulted with daily outrage, sought refuge at Rhodes, until the return of better times.

Saturninus then exulting in the intoxication of sanguinary projects, his tribunate being ended, offered himself again, whence excluded by the suffrages, he, with his villainous followers, again excited tumult and violence in the Comitia-and in your presence, oh facile Romans killed Aulus Nonnius, the last of the ten Tribunes then chosen, and proclaimed himself in his stead -were ye not deserving of these outrages?-Saturninus remained not only possessed of the dignity, but used it with a ferocity suitable to the means by which he had acquired it.-Who then was safe in Rome but in his iniquity?-What magistrate was sacred— what law inviolate- what virtue not contemned?-Alas, how shall I relate events still odious-still lamentable, although submerged by time, and in their nature abject, compared with the sublime contemplations of our immortal state. But the presence of this multitude of our ancestors, coevals, and posterity, here assembled after the lapse of so many ages, recalls to memory

illustrious by his conquests of the Numidians, Teutones, and Cimbri, and by his Consulate, in his seventieth year, fat and infirm of body, stimulated by the feverish mania of ambition, wished to spend his last days in Cappadocia and Pontus, and contended with Silla for the expedition-a contention magnanimous in principle, but in deeds most horrible, for Marius to obtain your suffrages brought over to his interest the Tribune Sulpitius, a man insatiable of blood and gold. In these vices he excelled all, but which of these in himself prevailed was doubtful. The Roman Citizenship, among our ancestors the reward of faithful allies, was by this Tribune publicly sold; and thus did he fill the Comitium with bad men made citizens, not for serving but depraving their country. To aid him in his auda1 cious deeds, he had continually in pay upwards of three thousand armed satellites, and never appeared in the Comitium without being surrounded by six hundred youths of the order of Cavaliers, bearing the name of Anti-Senate -which title they aspired to merit by deeds of tyranny and sedition.

"The Senate having made Silla commander of the army against Mithridates, the Tribune ordered his assassins to maintain the cause of Marius. Instantly their swords were drawn, and bathed in Roman blood-the Consuls fled-and the Comitium was strewed with many slain. Silla took shelter near the army in Campania, while Marius in the Comitium was proclaimed captain of it by the furious mob, standing in the blood of their countrymen, which ran still warm. But Silia, whose hostile deeds were never tempered with pity-a sentiment to his nature abhorrent and impossible, moved his legions, destined to new triumphs in Asia, in cruel vengeance against his country.

"He entered these walls as a famished tyger. The houses and highways resounded with lamentations, the noise of arms, and the groans of the dying. Silla himself, grasping a torch, called out to his followers, commanding them to set fire to the city, and spare nothing. Ye, terrified and desperate, cast from the tops of your flaming houses the ruins on their ferocious destroyers, who, thus exasperated, brought fresh fuel to the flames. Now no longer a tumult, but war declared by the sound of trumpets, your eagle as the ensign of death and slavery to you was raised in Rome Europ. Mag. Vol. LXXIV. Oct. 1918.

by one of its own citizens. Oh, deplorable !-Ob, fatal day! in which all hope of real liberty was destroyed. Marius, who had so often saved both Rome and Italy from the hands of barbarians, then fled from these walls; and if such infamous slaughters may be designated by the name of victory, Silla remained victor. He then immediately rejoined the army in Campania, and passed into Greece against Mithridates.

"But the country was not relieved even by the absence of these ferocious competitors, being again disturbed by the discords of the two Consuls Octavius and Cinna. This last, although in the Roman capitol he had sworn fidelity to Silla, received afterwards thirty talents from the favourers of Marius, consigned the army to slaves and plebeians, and proposed that it should be recalled-this the other opposed. Ye saw the contest between the two Consuls in the Comitium inundated with your blood, and strewed with many thousands of your dead. Cinna discomfited quitted Rome, crossed Italy, and assembled his followers. Marius followed him; and both inflamed with ferocious vengeance, turned against these walls the sword still warm with civil blood. The defence of Rome was then confided to Pompeius Strabonius. But, as though Heaven itself revolted from the atrocious spectacle, where, close to their country's walls, fathers slew their children, and brother slew his brother, a sudden storm obscured the land, and this your defender was consumed by lightning. Under such-calamities, the common people sinking daily into the most depraved state of barbarity, took the body from the coffin in which it was conveyed to the funeral pile, and dragged it through the public streets. Oh, Romans, from this Pompey, sprang the Pompey by you so deservedly surnamed the Great, whose great merits I admired, although I rivalled him in that indivisible object, the Empire.

"The Senate was at last forced to ask, not peace, but pity, from these two barbarians. Cinna entered first, preceded by his lictors, while Marius, standing at the gate, said, with a malicious sneer, that he could not enter until the people assembled in the Comitia recalled him from that exile to which they had condemned him. While with auxious solicitude the suffrages were collected, Marius urged his legions Q q

to the most atrocious deeds. He closed all the gates of the city, through which he dispersed his butchers, the greater part of whom were slaves freed by him for the slaughters of that bloody day. Ye saw the public streets strewed with the dead; their bodies dragged through them in savage sport-infants dashed against the walls-mothers killed and daughters violated-with more ferocity than the famished wolf tears in pieces the lambs in the sheep-fold, did the pityless Marius murder the helpless citizens of Rome. Soon were the Rostri covered with the heads of the most illustrious patricians. Ye, O Romans, but a little before, I know not whether free or insolent, now insensible to these extreme atrocities, trembling at the sight of those incredible slaughters, meekly stretched out your necks to those murderers, who,smiling,butchered you. The Consul Cneus Octavius, in the midst of this general and shameful cowardice, sat in the curule chair, and beheld with intrepidity the bloody scene; but neither was he an example of real fortitude; for although attacked by the assassins, he preserved still the same majestic position, and in that position was slain; in his vest was found the answer of an astrologer, who assured him that in the general mas. sacre he would not perish. So numerous are the instances of daring murder which present themselves to my imagination, that I know not what to relate or what to omit, where to mention all would weary the hearer. The Senator Sextus Licinius was by the order of Marius precipitated from the Tarpeian Rock. The son of Marius, himself, slew a tribune of the people, and sent his head as an offering to his father. Two of my own family, Lucius, and Caius Cæsar, brothers, also fell-Caius being found by a client of his, whose life he had saved by his eloquence, was by him ungratefully betrayed to the Marian murderers. Lucius was killed at the tomb of Varius the Tribune, who in his life-time was an enemy to the good, and this a victim sacrificed to his ferocious soul. The son of P. Crassus was slain before his eyes, who not able to survive the shock, stabbed himself, and fell upon the body of his son. Infinite were the slaughters which Time in her vast womb contains; but that of M. Antonius the orator is still to be deplored by you-who was condemned by Marius from no other

motive, it was supposed, than the innate hatred of the wicked to the good. The butcher Marius was at table, when he was told that M. Antonius was taken by his assassins. Drunk with Falernian wine and blood, he shouted for joy, clapped his hands, exulting with fero cious mirth, while those who sat at table with him with difficulty restrained him from running himself to put bim to death-he then ordered Arrius, his mili tary Tribune, to bring him immediately his venerable head. When he arrived at the house of Antonius, he told the satel lites to execute the order, and stood at the threshold. The aspect of so great a man, and his admirable eloquence, restrained the swords of the murderers. The Tribune, enraged at this short indulgence, entered the habitation, and with his own hand cut off the head of the orator, while the satellites stood listening to him with tearful eyes, overcome by pity as soon as he began to speak. The head was then brought to Marius, who received the murderer with extravagant embraces, placed the bloody offering among the viands at the table, at which he still sat eating, and feasted his ferocious eyes with the sight; it then, with innumerable others, was hung at the Rostri, an object of horror, where it had been before an object of admiration. No merit, no dignity, could bridle the impetuous rage of Marius, who, breathing ven geance, was not satiated with inundating that city with blood, whence he had been driven a short time before by the fortune of war. Even Catullus himself, his colleague, and who had especially contributed to the victory of the Cimbri, could obtain no favour from him-the splendor of his glory was offensive to him-neither present prayers, nor past services, nor their common laurels, could ap pease the mind of Marius, whose terrible answer always was, Let him die! Catullus, therefore, desperate, set fire to some combustible materials, in a closed cell, and was suffocated. Merula, also, the priest of Jove, saved himself from the public massacre, only by killing himself before the image of that divinity. But so numerous were the deaths determined in the ferocious mind of Marius, that he had not time to pronounce the respective sentence of each; he therefore contrived with his executioners an expeditious mode of making the citizens fall at his feet