ith the Latins, Alexius was patient and artful: his
discerning eye pervaded the new system of an unknown world and I shall
hereafter describe the superior policy with which he balanced the
interests and passions of the champions of the first crusade. In a long
reign of thirty-seven years, he subdued and pardoned the envy of his
equals: the laws of public and private order were restored: the arts
of wealth and science were cultivated: the limits of the empire were
enlarged in Europe and Asia; and the Comnenian sceptre was transmitted
to his children of the third and fourth generation. Yet the difficulties
of the times betrayed some defects in his character; and have exposed
his memory to some just or ungenerous reproach. The reader may possibly
smile at the lavish praise which his daughter so often bestows on a
flying hero: the weakness or prudence of his situation might be mistaken
for a want of personal courage; and his political arts are branded by
the Latins with the names of deceit and dissimulation. The increase
of the male and female branches of his family adorned the throne, and
secured the succession; but their princely luxury and pride offended
the patricians, exhausted the revenue, and insulted the misery of the
people. Anna is a faithful witness that his happiness was destroyed, and
his health was broken, by the cares of a public life; the patience of
Constantinople was fatigued by the length and severity of his reign;
and before Alexius expired, he had lost the love and reverence of his
subjects. The clergy could not forgive his application of the sacred
riches to the defence of the state; but they applauded his theological
learning and ardent zeal for the orthodox faith, which he defended with
his tongue, his pen, and his sword. His character was degraded by the
superstition of the Greeks; and the same inconsistent principle of human
nature enjoined the emperor to found a hospital for the poor and infirm,
and to direct the execution of a heretic, who was burned alive in the
square of St. Sophia. Even the sincerity of his moral and religious
virtues was suspected by the persons who had passed their lives in his
familiar confidence. In his last hours, when he was pressed by his wife
Irene to alter the succession, he raised his head, and breathed a pious
ejaculation on the vanity of this world. The indignant reply of the
empress may be inscribed as an epitaph on his tomb, "You die, as you
have lived--A Hypocrite