mn decree should place him in the number of the gods: and the
ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral.
This legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious profanation, so
abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very faint
murmur, by the easy nature of Polytheism; but it was received as an
institution, not of religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the
virtues of the Antonines by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or
Jupiter. Even the characters of Caesar or Augustus were far superior to
those of the popular deities. But it was the misfortune of the former
to live in an enlightened age, and their actions were too faithfully
recorded to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery, as the
devotion of the vulgar requires. As soon as their divinity was
established by law, it sunk into oblivion, without contributing either
to their own fame, or to the dignity of succeeding princes.

In the consideration of the Imperial government, we have frequently
mentioned the artful founder, under his well-known title of Augustus,
which was not, however, conferred upon him till the edifice was almost
completed. The obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family,
in the little town of Aricia. It was stained with the blood of the
proscription; and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all
memory of his former life. The illustrious surname of Caesar he had
assumed, as the adopted son of the dictator: but he had too much good
sense, either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared with
that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their
minister with a new appellation; and after a serious discussion, that of
Augustus was chosen, among several others, as being the most expressive
of the character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly affected.
Augustus was therefore a personal, Caesar a family distinction. The
former should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was
bestowed; and however the latter was diffused by adoption and female
alliance, Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim
to the honors of the Julian line. But, at the time of his death, the
practice of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with
the Imperial dignity, and they have been preserved by a long succession
of emperors, Romans, Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from the fall of
the republic to the present time. A distinction w