Mr. Gravina believes in the donations of Pepin and Charlemagne. But, according to him, these princes gave the duchy of Rome and the exarchate of Ravenna to the popes, as chiefs of the senate and Roman republic during the vacancy of the empire.

In the insurrection of the Romans against King Hugh and Marozia, they established their ancient government by two annual consuls and tribunes. Young Alberic was one of the first consuls. Gravina cites Blondus; but Muratori, who places this event in the year 932 instead of 928, does not speak of consuls. I am inclined however to believe Gravina. The consuls were certainly re-established about that time.

Mr. Gravina thinks that Otho III. abolished the consulship in 995, after the death of Crescentius. The observation seems probable; yet he does not give his authority; and it is proved that the office of consul subsisted immediately afterwards, as well as in the following age.

Innocent III. received the homage of the præfect of Rome, and granted to him the investiture of his office.-Sigon. de Regn. Ital. At the request of the people, he created fifty senators to govern the city; but as they exceedingly abused their power, he reduced them to one only, appointed to distribute justice.-Cantilius de Romana Historia à Carolo Magno.

Under the pontificate of Martin IV. the Orsini, to avenge the affront which they had received from the Annibaldesi (who had driven them from Viterbo, after the death of their uncle Nicholas III.) entered with an armed force into Rome, which they ravaged with fire and sword. At that time were burnt the ancient edifices whose ruins are still visible on the declivity of the Capitoline hill.

OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

THE NINTH CENTURY.

THE more civilised part of the globe was divided between the Christians and the Mahometans; the former under two emperors, the latter under two caliphs. 1. The newly-erected empire of the Franks extended over France, Germany, and Italy, and even the Christian princes of Britain and the mountains of Spain respected the power and dignity of Charlemagne. 2. The empire of the Greeks, or as they vainly styled it, of the Romans, had preserved only Macedonia, Thrace, and Asia Minor. 3. The caliphs of the house of Ommiyah reigned in Spain. 4. Africa, Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and Persia, were subject to the Abassides. Whatever lay beyond the limits of these four empires, was still pagan, and, excepting China, still barbarous.

The overgrown monarchy of the Abassides soon declined. The powerful viceroys of great and distant provinces gradually usurped

the prerogatives, though they still respected the dignity of the caliph. The reigns of Al Rashid, Al Mamûn, and Al Motassem were, however, wise and prosperous: but their feeble successors, immersed in the luxury of the seraglio, resigned the guard of their throne and person to a body of Turkish mercenaries, who, as their interest or passions might dictate, deposed, massacred, and created the lieutenants of the prophet. At length they began to experience the dire effects of the enthusiasm to which they owed their grandeur. A sect of desperate fanatics, called Karmathians, disturbed Irak and Arabia. The Assassins of Syria, so much dreaded during the crusades, were the last remains of them.

The ruin of the French empire was more precipitate, and attended with greater calamities. It is chiefly to be ascribed to the fierce spirit of the Franks, unable to support either an arbitrary or a legal government; to the incapacity of Lewis the Debonnaire, and to the ambition of his four sons, who, in one battle, destroyed a hundred thousand of their subjects. The dignity of the throne and blood of Charlemagne was eclipsed, as every prince divided his dominions among his children; and the spirit of union was irrecoverably lost. Charles the Bald disgraced the imperial purple by acknowledging that he held it from the favour of his subject the bishop of Rome. Another Charles, as unworthy as the former, was deposed by his subjects, and the vacant empire usurped by the kings of France, of Burgundy, of Arles, of Germany, and of Italy, all strangers to the family of Charlemagne. The dukes and the counts who had served their ambition, converted their governments into hereditary possessions, which they shared among their barons, and these again among their followers; the superior still reserving the faith, homage, and military service of his vassal. The people, both of the cities and country, was reduced to a state of slavery. The clergy sometimes imitated, and sometimes moderated the tyranny of the military order.

In the mean while the Normans from the north, the Hungarians from the east, and the Arabs, or Saracens, from the south, assaulted this defenceless empire on every side. Rome and Paris were besieged, and these invaders often met each other in the centre of the ruined provinces. The Normans especially, animated by the Saxons, great numbers of whom had retired into Scandinavia to escape the bloody baptism of Charlemagne, inflicted a dreadful revenge on the persons and property of the Christian priests.

The union of the Saxon heptarchy was effected by Egbert, king of the West Saxons, who had been trained to arms and policy in the school of Charlemagne ; but it was scarcely yet cemented, when England experienced the same calamities as the Continent from the Danes or Normans. They were with much difficulty expelled, or subdued, by the victories of Alfred. Amidst the deepest gloom of barbarism, the virtue of Antoninus, the learning and valour of Cæsar, and the legislative genius of Lycurgus, shone forth united in that patriot king. Several of his institutions have survived the Norman conquest, and contributed to form the English constitution.

The Arabs, whether subject to the house of Abas or to that of

Ommiyah, formed but one people. The Christians of the western and eastern empires had scarcely any common resemblance, except that of religious superstition. The Franks had almost forgotten to read or write, in the most literal sense of these words. The Greeks preserved their ancient authors without attempting to imitate them. But the Arabs were poets and philosophers; bewildered themselves very ingeniously in the maze of metaphysics, and improved the more useful sciences of physic, astronomy, and the mathematics. The arts, which minister to the convenience and luxury of life, were known only if the East, and at Constantinople.

From these arts the Arabs derived their splendor, and the Greeks their existence. A people without valour or discipline, and a throne perpetually stained with blood and occupied by weak princes, could not long have withstood the numerous enemies which on every side surrounded them. Constantinople alone, attracting by its situation and industry the commerce of Europe and Asia, supplied the absolute monarch with an inexhaustible source of wealth and power.

THE TENTH CENTURY.

Out of respect to Charlemagne's memory, Charles the Simple and his descendants to the third generation, were permitted to hold the crown of France: but it was a crown without either power or splendour. Italy, with the imperial dignity; Germany, with the neighbouring provinces of Lorraine, Alsace, Franche Comté, Dauphiné, and Provence, were separated from the French monarchy. The last Carlovingian princes, reduced to the city of Laon, beheld the misery of their country, and the wars among their great vassals. Of these the most powerful were the dukes of France, of Normandy, of Burgundy, and of Aquitaine; the counts of Flanders, of Champagne, and of Toulouse. Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, acquired that fertile province by conquest and by treaty: his barbarian followers readily adopted the French manners, religion, and language. Hugh Capet, duke of France, and count of Paris and Orleans, wrested from the last of the Carlovingians the sceptre, which still remains in the hands of his posterity: but his new regal title scarcely gave him any authority over his peers, and his ample fiefs composed a very inconsiderable kingdom.

The Germans, freed from the French yoke, elected for their king Conrad, Duke of Franconia, and after him a line of Saxon princes. Henry the Fowler chastised the Hungarians, civilised his rude subjects, and was the first founder of cities in the interior parts of Germany. His son, Otho the Great, passed the Alps, gave laws to Italy and to the popes, and for ever fixed the imperial dignity in the German nation. He imposed a tribute on the vanquished Danes and Bohemians, and since that time the King of Bohemia has acknowledged himself the first vassal of the German empire, which was treated with contempt by the Greeks, reluctantly submitted to by the Italians, but respected by the rest of Europe. The second and third Otho, son and grandson to the first, supported, though with less vigour and capacity, the claims which he transmitted to them.

Spain flourished under the happy government of the Ommiades more than in any former or later period. Their capital, Cordova, is said to have contained two hundred thousand houses, and the adjacent country twelve thousand villages. The active genius of the Arabs was at once employed in war, science, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. The annual revenue of the caliph Abdoubrahman III. exceeded six millions sterling, and probably surpassed that of all the Christian kings united. Under the reign of his grandson, the viziers became masters of the palace, and the governors of their provinces.

The Christian princes of Gothic or Gascon extraction, who had maintained their independence in the Pyrenean and Asturian mountains, and of whom the King of Leon was the most considerable, prepared to take advantage of the intestine divisions of the Mahometans.

A new empire arose in Africa. Obeidollah, who styled himself the descendant and avenger of Ali, reduced under his obedience the whole country from the Atlantic ocean to the frontiers of Egypt, together with the island of Sicily; and founded the dynasty of the Fatimite caliph. Moez Ledinilla, the fourth in descent and succession from him, conquered Egypt and Syria, and built Grand Cairo on the banks of the Nile, which soon became one of the first cities of the world. But in proportion as the Fatimite caliphs extended their conquests towards the East, their western dominions of Africa escaped from their yoke. In the meanwhile the Arabs of Mauritania, who still retained their pastoral life, spread the terror of their arms and the law of Mahomet among the negro nations in the interior parts of Africa.

The empire of the Abassides was dismembered by twenty dynasties, Arabs, Turks, and Persians. The caliph of Bagdad, a prisoner in his palace, enjoyed the vain honour of being named first in the public prayers, and of granting the investiture of his provinces to every fortunate usurper. The Greeks seized the favourable opportunity, recovered Antioch, and once more extended their power as far as the banks of the Euphrates.

As England formed a separate world, which maintained very little intercourse with other nations, it may be reserved for the last place. Edward the Elder and Athelstan inherited the military virtues of Alfred. The great grandson of that prince, Edgar, is celebrated by the monks for his profuse devotion to their order; and by rational men, for the attention he gave to the natural strength of his kingdom, a maritime power. The Danes, who since the time of Alfred had respected the coasts of England, renewed their attacks as soon as they discovered the weakness of young Ethelred, the son of Edgar.

While the Musulmans, notwithstanding their intestine troubles, preserved the light of science, Europe sunk still deeper into ignorance, barbarism, and superstition. The Benedictine abbeys, though they nursed the last of these monsters, opposed some faint resistance against the two former. They transcribed ancient books, improved their lands, and opened an asylum for the slaves of feudal tyranny,

which had every where erected fortified castles on the ruins of cities and villages. The inhabitants of the rocks of Genoa, and of the marshes of Venice, began to seek, first a subsistence, and soon afterwards wealth and power, in the useful employments of trade and navigation.

THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

The general history of this age may be comprehended under four great events. 1. The empire of the Turks in Asia. 2. The disputes between the emperors and the popes. 3. The conquest of England and Naples by the Normans; and, 4. The crusades against the Mahometans.

1. Mahmud of Gesna was the first prince, who, under the empire of the caliphs, assumed the title of Sultan. He reigned over the eastern parts of Persia, and invaded the rich and peaceful nations of Hindostan, several of which bowed to his yoke, and to that of the Alcoran. As he had occasion for great armies, he invited into his service the tribe of Seljuk, one of the bravest and most numerous among the Turks. They served the father, but rebelled against the son. The several dynasties of Persia fell successively before the sword of Togrul Beg, their first sovereign. The feeble caliph of Bagdad was obliged to grant him the investiture of his conquests, and to receive a Turk for his protector and his son-in-law. Alp Arslan, the successor of Togrul, took the Emperor Romanus Diogenes prisoner in a great battle, and treated him with a generous courtesy that would have done honour to the most civilised nations. Asia Minor, a part of the Greek empire, and Syria, and Palestine, then subject to the caliphs of Egypt, were subdued by the victorious Turks. The empire of Malek Shah extended from India to the Hellespont: his court was the seat of learning, justice, and magnificence. The Turks, who had adopted the religion and manners of the Arabs, studied to conceal from the nations of Asia that they had changed their masters.

2. The emperor Otho III. was succeeded by his cousin Henry II., surnamed the Saint, because he chose to be the last of his family. The Franconian princes, Conrad the Salic, Henry III., and Henry IV. succeeded to the house of Saxony. These emperors possessed as much power as was compatible with the feudal system. Their great vassals were more accustomed to order and obedience than those of France. They enjoyed a large domain and revenue in Germany. Italy, once the mistress, and since the slave of the nations, was treated as a conquered country. The right of granting the investiture of benefices, and even of the see of Rome, became in their hands an inexhaustible source either of power or of profit. Gregory VII., a monk of daring and obstinate spirit, embraced the pretence of abolishing simony, and the opportunity of delivering himself and his successors from an odious yoke. The emperor was excommunicated and deposed, and these spiritual arms were seconded, either from interested or pious motives, by the Normans, by the Countess Matilda, by the princes of Germany, and even by the sons of Henry. Though he defended himself with vigour, and was victorious in sixty