began
his reign by pursuing a course opposite to that of his predecessor,
taking every method of declining war, and promoting the arts of peace.
His first care was to make peace with the Par'thians, and to restore
Chos'roes, for he was satisfied with preserving the ancient limits of
the empire, and seemed no way ambitious of extensive conquest.

9. A'drian was one of the most remarkable of the Roman emperors for
the variety of his endowments. He was highly skilled in all the
accomplishments both of body and mind. He composed with great beauty,
both in prose and verse, he pleaded at the bar, and was one of the
best orators of his time. 10. Nor were his virtues fewer than his
accomplishments. His moderation and clemency appeared by pardoning the
injuries which he had received when he was yet but a private man. One
day meeting a person who had formerly been his most inveterate
enemy--"My good friend," said he, "you have escaped; for I am made
emperor." He was affable to his friends, and gentle to persons of
meaner stations; he relieved their wants, and visited them in
sickness; it being his constant maxim, that he had been elected
emperor, not for his own good, but for the benefit of mankind at
large.

11. These virtues were, however, contrasted by vices of considerable
magnitude; or rather, he wanted strength of mind to preserve his
rectitude of character without deviation.

12. He was scarcely settled on the throne, when several of the
northern barbarians began to devastate the frontier provinces of the
empire. These hardy nations, who now found the way to conquer by
issuing from their forests, and then retiring on the approach of
a superior force, began to be truly formidable to Rome. 13. A'drian
had thoughts of contracting the limits of the empire, by giving up
some of the most remote and least defensible provinces; in this,
however, he was overruled by friends, who wrongly imagined that an
extensive frontier would intimidate an invading enemy. 14. But though
he complied with their remonstrances, he broke down the bridge over
the Dan'ube, which his predecessor had built, sensible that the same
passage which was open to him, was equally convenient to the
incursions of his barbarous neighbours.

15. Having staid a long time at Rome, to see that all things were
regulated and established for the safety of the public, he prepared to
make a progress through his whole empire. 16. It was one of his
maxims, that an emper