rinth, and thinks how many exquisite produetions of Grecian art were buried there, the Christian beholds them with more solemn feeling and deeper awe. He discerns amidst the ruins of this once splendid city the footsteps of the God of vengeance. He hears amidst the mouldering columns of her temples, and the decayed fragments of her palaces, the awful thunders of a violated law, and of incensed justice. He exelaims with holy fear and trembling: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright in thy judg

ments."

"He remembers that this devoted city was, like the cities in the plain of Sodem, immersed in sensuality, and rendered infamous by its most flagrant vices-the sink of depravity, where Satan's seat was,'-and he no longer wonders, that like them it should have been made a perpetual monument of vindictive wrath, and of Divine vengeance."

Nothing can evince the power of the Roman Commonwealth, or the terror of its arms, more than the effect produced by the conduct of Popilius Lœnas, when he was sent as an ambassador to Antiochus, king of Syria; and was commissioned to order that monarch to abstain from hostilities against Ptolemy, king of Egypt, whe

was an ally of Rome. Antiochus, who was at the head of his army when he received this order, wished to evade it by equivocal answers; but Popilius, with a stick which he had in his hand, made a circle round him on the sand, and bade him, in the name of the Roman senate and people, not to go beyond it before he spoke decisively. This boldness intimidated Antiochus. He withdrew his garrison from Egypt, and no longer meditated a war against Ptolemy.

But the same conquests which raised the republic to the summit of her grandeur, threw too much weight into the democratic scale; and by totally corrupting the Roman manners, brought on the final ruin of their liberty and constitution. For as every conquered province created successively a new government, these new dignities immediately created objects of avarice and ambition. As the command of armies, the government of provinces, and the highest posts in the state were disposed of by the suffrages of the people, the candidates for these lucrative employments left no means unattempted to secure a majority.

The generals who were elected, fleeced the provinces to enable them to keep up their interests with the people; and connived at the rapine of the soldiers, to secure their attachment.

Hence, at Rome, liberty degenerated into the most outrageous licentiousness. And hence those leaders of armies who were successful, began to look upon themselves no longer as servants, but as masters of the republic, and each endeavoured to support his pretensions by force of arms.

Thus Rome frequently felt the calamitous effects of war in her own bowels, at a time when her victorious arms abroad were adding new provinces to her dominions. The triumvirate became little more than a coalition of the same factions, where three chiefs united their several parties to crush every other party. When they had accomplished this, and satiated their ambition, their avarice, and their private resentments, they quarrelled about the division of power, like captains of banditti about the division of booty.

These quarrels occasioned those civil wars, which gave the finishing blow to the Roman republic. The ablest and most dangerous man in each triumvirate, proved at last the conqueror; and Julius Cæsar first put those chains upon his country, which Augustus rivetted beyond a possibility of removal. The history of the republic presents little to our view but a continued series of wars abroad, and of contests at home, between the two opposite classes of citizens.

After ages of contest, the democratic party

obtained the ascendency; the many evils which the unbridled ambition of the patricians, and the fury and licentiousness of the plebeians, successively entailed upon each other, at last effected the subversion of republican government.

The various changes to which it was subjected, instead of being the result of cool reflection, and the most deliberate consideration, are more like mere temporary expedients, dictated on the spur of the occasion. The continually fluctuating and unsettled state of republican government, the factions and dissensions which it generated, convince us of the great advantage of a constitution so wisely constructed and admirably adapted to promote peace and order, as that of the British empire.

The design of this work has not been to detail military achievements and conquests, further than was necessary to demonstrate the fulfillment of prophecy. We shall therefore, at the present, pass over the history of the period which elapsed from the division of the Grecian empire to the coming of Christ, with only observing, that the rapid progress of the Romans in arts and arms, in the aggrandizement of power, and the acquisition of wealth and territory, has not any parallel in the history of the world. To show the completion of what Daniel saw in the vision, we

shall give, from the Elements of General Knowledge, a short sketch of the proud pre-eminence to which imperial Rome attained.

"At the time when the virtuous but warlike Trajan filled the throne, the Romans had reached the summit of dominion and magnificence. The metropolis of the empire, and its suburbs, extending beyond the seven celebrated hills, were bounded by a circumference of fifty miles. More populous than Babylon, Nineveh, or Thebes, or any capital of modern Europe, the number of its inhabitants amounted to 1,200,000. It abounded with mansions remarkable for height and stateliness; it was interspersed with gardens and groves; and was decorated with every edifice which could contribute either to the use or ornament of individuals, or of the public. Fountains, Baths, Aqueducts, Bridges, Markets, Obelisks, Squares, Courts of Justice, Porticos, Palaces, Amphitheatres and Temples, filled the august prospect. The temple of Ops was enriched with the gold of subdued monarchs ; the Rostra were decked with the naval spoils of a long succession of ages; and upon the lofty arches were described, in the most exquisite sculpture, the various victories and splendid triumphs of the conquerors of the world. Among the public buildings, were more particularly observed by the astonished.