d his life in peace and in glory, after a reign
of forty-seven years. The death of Athanasius was the signal of the
persecution of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, who forcibly
seated the worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal throne, purchased
the favor of the reigning party, by the blood and sufferings of their
Christian brethren. The free toleration of the heathen and Jewish
worship was bitterly lamented, as a circumstance which aggravated the
misery of the Catholics, and the guilt of the impious tyrant of the
East.

The triumph of the orthodox party has left a deep stain of persecution
on the memory of Valens; and the character of a prince who derived
his virtues, as well as his vices, from a feeble understanding and a
pusillanimous temper, scarcely deserves the labor of an apology. Yet
candor may discover some reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical
ministers of Valens often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions,
of their master; and that the real measure of facts has been very
liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy credulity of
his antagonists. 1. The silence of Valentinian may suggest a probable
argument that the partial severities, which were exercised in the
name and provinces of his colleague, amounted only to some obscure
and inconsiderable deviations from the established system of religious
toleration: and the judicious historian, who has praised the equal
temper of the elder brother, has not thought himself obliged to contrast
the tranquillity of the West with the cruel persecution of the East.
2. Whatever credit may be allowed to vague and distant reports, the
character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may be most distinctly
seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent Basil, archbishop
of Caesarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in the management of the
Trinitarian cause. The circumstantial narrative has been composed by the
friends and admirers of Basil; and as soon as we have stripped away
a thick coat of rhetoric and miracle, we shall be astonished by the
unexpected mildness of the Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his
character, or was apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general
revolt in the province of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted,
with inflexible pride, the truth of his opinions, and the dignity of his
rank, was left in the free possession of his conscience and his throne.
The emperor devoutly assisted at the solemn service of