during a pestilence, that the priests ordered a dance in dumb show, as an accompaniment to the music of the flute. A song was afterwards suited to the music and the dance; then came the chorus, with its smart dialogue of sharp, sparring, rustic raillery; and last of all, the regular acted story.

Mystery and pomp strikingly characterized Ancient Romanism. On occasions of peculiar solemnity, the images of their most trusted gods were paraded through the city, on litters borne on the shoulders of splendidly robed priests, chaunting hymns in Greek and Latin in their praise, preceded by troops of boys and girls bearing innumerable flambeaux, and followed by the Consuls, Senators, and Magistrates, all marshalled in military array by the Supreme Pontiff. The hall of justice was closed, the prisoners were unshackled, and all business suspended, until the images were restored, with many genuflexions, to their temples, reclined on splendid cushions, and invited to banquet on sacrifices, cakes of bread, and libations of wine; then the chief priests scattered incense and holy water over the 'worshippers'; and the day ended in feasting, sports, and dancing. Such, for successive days and on a far grander scale, were the ceremonies with which the Romans solemnized each hundredth anniversary of their city, and to this custom we owe the inimitable 'Secular Ode' of Horace. During the eleven hundred years of the existence of Ancient Romanism as the religion of the State, the priesthood kept up an unbroken succession in their colleges. Fifteen Pontiffs regularly professed to interpret the will of the gods by books in their sole possession, and jealously watched over all the questions which incessantly arose in their traditionary system. Fifteen Augurs also observed the face of the heavens, and foretold the future by the flight of birds. Fifteen Keepers of the Sybilline books were consulted as prophets. Seven Epulos had the oversight of the solemn processions and fes

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VESTAL VIRGINS.

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tivals held in honour of the gods. The Flamens of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, were esteemed the priests of the most powerful deities who watched over the fate of Rome. The King of the Sacrifices represented the person of Numa and his successors, in such rites as could only be performed by royal hands. Six noble virgins kept alive the flame on the altar of Vesta, the patroness of the commonwealth, and watched over a mysterious casket containing relics supposed essential to the existence of Rome. As the idea of death was repugnant to innocence like that imputed to a vestal, the culprit for whom she interceded was instantly pardoned; even the criminal on whom she cast her eyes on his way to the scaffold was forthwith let go free. Woe betide the vestal who broke her vow of virginity! Her blood was not to be shed by man; but a higher tribunal, that of the incensed goddess herself, cut her away from the land of the living, and hid her from the sight of her country for ever. She was sacrificed to the goddess of the Earth, and entombed alive by the priests, with horrible magical rites, in a vault prepared for her without the city. A single crust of bread, and a single cruise of water were placed by her side, and her death was attributed to the hand of the offended divinity; for starvation was considered by the Romans merely as the withdrawal of his gifts by an angry deity; and they thought it no sin to expose to this cruel death their female children or useless slaves.

Cybele was another goddess so exceedingly revered by the Romans, that all her priests were not only vowed to celibacy, as a life of sanctity suitable to the service of 'the great Mother,' but absolutely mutilated before entering office.

The higher classes of the priesthood, especially the Supreme Pontiff, enjoyed an ample stipend from the consecrated lands and public revenues. Their purple robes, chariots of state, and sumptuous entertainments, secured them so much public

reverence and political power, that statesmen, soldiers, and lawyers pressed into their ranks and conferred additional splendour upon them. Julius Cæsar publicly declared the immortality of the soul-the foundation of all religion-to be a vain chimera'; and yet he staked all his fortunes on attaining the office of Supreme Pontiff. As he was going forth to the election he embraced his mother, who stood drowned in tears at his door, saying, 'This day you will behold your son either Supreme Pontiff of Rome or an exile.' He gained the coveted dignity; and, so unable was he to stem the superstitious feelings of his countrymen that he crawled on his knees up the steps of the Capitoline temple, to appease Nemesis, the avenging deity who frowns on human prosperity.

The Roman soldier starts forth to view at the name of his most celebrated and successful general. A glance at the early history of the Romans, reveals to us foes more multitudinous, and wars more frequent, than ever fell to any other nation's lot. But Providence, that designed them to win the Empire of the World, so over-ruled the course of events, that each invasion, and every conflict, more powerfully developed their extraordinary energies, and their indomitable perseverance, whilst it inured them to such iron discipline, unhesitating obedience, powerful self-control, and magnanimous selfsacrifice, even to the death, as rendered the Roman soldiers almost invincible. But a merciless cruelty breathes forth in most of their acts of self-devotion, quite incompatible with true patriotism. So Tubertus and Manlius, remorselessly executing their brave sons for having engaged with the enemy without orders, although successfully; Brutus, neither stirring from his seat, nor turning away his eyes from the strange and piteous sight of his own sons, scourged with rods and beheaded by his order, because he spared not his own chil

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THE ROMAN SOLDIER.

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dren when they had been false to their country'; Horatius meeting his sister, as she bewailed the lover whose blood stained his sword, and stabbing her to the heart, with the cruel cry, 'So perish the Roman maiden who shall weep for her country's enemy.' Acts like these were such an overstraining as broke the bow of patriotism, and turned liberty into military tyranny. Hence, in the bas-reliefs and bronzes of Roman greatness, the Roman soldier is ever seen as a ruthless being. The contracted brow declares that storms of battle have beat upon it often; the glare of that overshadowed eye throws contempt upon death; the inflated nostril breathes a steady rage; the fixed lips deny mercy; the rigid arms and the knit joints have forced a path to victory, through bristled ramparts and triple lines of shields and swords. And withal

there is a hardness of texture that seems the outward expression of an iron strength and rigour of soul—a power as well of enduring as of inflicting pain; and the one with almost as much indifference as the other. Shall we conceive of encountering, on the open field, a being so firmly fierce, and so long accustomed to crush and trample upon man? Shall we wonder at his proud boast, that the world either already owned, or would shortly own, the supremacy of Rome? But who can unflinchingly imagine himself delivered into the hands of the Roman soldier armed, not as a combatant, but an executioner? This indeed is terror. Alas, then, let us commiserate the sufferings of our brethren and sisters in Christ-the early martyrs! What had they to look for when the centurion's band, such as we see it now encircling the column of Trajan, was let loose upon a flock of trembling victims, with license and command to torture and kill? But I anticipate sufficient here to remark, that the cruelty which the Romans learnt in conflict with their enemies in the field, they exercised at home on their slaves and children, wives

:

and parents, aud that the ordinary punishments of their laws. was relentless.

The Pelasgian race, to which the Greeks and Romans both belong, was chiefly distinguished by such a passion for institutions and order, as powerfully promoted amongst them a reverence for law, and a habit of considering the individual as living only for the society or nation of which he was a member. This characteristic, which renders national institutions great and permanent, has also marked the Saxon and other Teutonic tribes; the Celts have been comparatively strangers to it, and we seldom find it in the nations of Asia. But we discover traces of it in the very earliest traditions of Roman story, for a number of laws, ascribed to their kings and preserved on tables of brass in the Capitol, are their sole monuments. This conservative principle, so to speak, was remarkably prominent in the Roman Senate, and in that stern fosternurse of Roman liberty, the Tribuneship, whose steady maintenance of the national institutions as of Divine origin and sanction, effectually, for many centuries, resisted the encroachments of the military power. Notions of religion and polity, interwoven and entangled together, sunk as it were into the very soul of the Roman senator, and his habits of thought on those matters which constituted his life, were cast in such a mould of iron that his life was almost a mechanical existence, devoted to conserving the Roman institutions. Indeed, so imbued with this conservative spirit were all the colonies that they were miniatures of Rome, and ever ready to sacrifice local interests to its welfare.

This singular habit of surrendering self to the public interest, where the commands of that interest required cruelty and treachery to foreigners, in order to save the majesty of Rome' from humiliation, often dictated atrocities over which humanity shudders; but when it required truth, justice, and