although the laws were violated
by power, or perverted by subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman
jurisprudence preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the
despotic governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive
some protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom,
which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the successors of
Augustus, that they did not reign over a nation of Slaves or Barbarians.

Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.--Part I.

Character Of Constantine.--Gothic War.--Death Of
Constantine.--Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.--
Persian War.--Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And
Constans.--Usurpation Of Magnentius.--Civil War.--Victory Of
Constantius.

The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and
introduced such important changes into the civil and religious
constitution of his country, has fixed the attention, and divided
the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians, the
deliverer of the church has been decorated with every attribute of a
hero, and even of a saint; while the discontent of the vanquished party
has compared Constantine to the most abhorred of those tyrants, who,
by their vice and weakness, dishonored the Imperial purple. The same
passions have in some degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations,
and the character of Constantine is considered, even in the present age,
as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial union of
those defects which are confessed by his warmest admirers, and of those
virtues which are acknowledged by his most-implacable enemies, we might
hope to delineate a just portrait of that extraordinary man, which the
truth and candor of history should adopt without a blush. But it would
soon appear, that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors,
and to reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a figure
monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper and
distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different periods of the
reign of Constantine.

The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been enriched
by nature with her choices endowments. His stature was lofty, his
countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his strength and activity
were displayed in every manly exercise, and from his earliest youth,
to a very advanced season of life, he preserv