hat, though destined to form no
important figure in this work, he played, from his position, a
remarkable part in the great drama on which it is founded--for this
feeder of chickens was no less a person than Honorius, Emperor of Rome.

It is the very imbecility of this man, at such a time as that we now
write on, which invests his character with a fearful interest in the
eye of posterity. In himself the impersonation of the meanest vices
inherent in the vicious civilisation of his period, to his feebleness
was accorded the terrible responsibility of liberating the
long-prisoned storm whose elements we have attempted to describe in the
preceding chapter. With just intellect enough to be capricious, and
just determination enough to be mischievous, he was an instrument
fitted for the uses of every ambitious villain who could succeed in
gaining his ear. To flatter his puerile tyranny, the infatuated
intriguers of the Court rewarded the heroic Stilicho for the rescue of
his country with the penalty of death, and defrauded Alaric of the
moderate concessions that they had solemnly pledged themselves to
perform. To gratify his vanity, he was paraded in triumph through the
streets of Rome for a victory that others had gained. To pander to his
arrogance, by an exhibition of the vilest privilege of that power which
had been intrusted to him for good, the massacre of the helpless
hostages, confided by Gothic honour to Roman treachery, was
unhesitatingly ordained; and, finally, to soothe the turbulence of his
unmanly fears, the last act of his unscrupulous councillors, ere the
Empire fell, was to authorise his abandoning his people in the hour of
peril, careless who suffered in defenceless Rome, while he was secure
in fortified Ravenna. Such was the man under whom the mightiest of the
world's structures was doomed to totter to its fall! Such was the
figure destined to close a scene which Time and Glory had united to
hallow and adorn! Raised and supported by a superhuman daring, that
invested the nauseous horrors of incessant bloodshed with a rude and
appalling magnificence, the mistress of nations was now fated to sink
by the most ignoble of defeats, under the most abject of tremblers.
For this had the rough old kingdom shaken off its enemies by swarms
from its vigorous arms! For this had the doubtful virtues of the
Republic, and the perilous magnificence of the Empire, perplexed and
astonished the world! In such a conclusi