gued before the Emperor in person. Must the Emperor be
there? May he not waste the hours in the blandishments of lying
courtiers, or the honeyed falsehoods of a mistress? If he chooses thus
to postpone the audience, be it so; Seneca, Burrhus, and his other
counsellors will obey. But the time will come when the worn-out boy will
be pleased some morning with the almost forgotten majesty of state. The
time comes one day. Worn out by the dissipation of the week, fretted by
some blunder of his flatterers, he sends for his wiser counsellers, and
bids them lead him to the audience-chamber, where he will attend to
these cases which need an Emperor's decision. It is at that moment that
we are to look upon him.

He sits there, upon that unequalled throne, his face sickly pale with
boyish debauchery; his young forehead worn with the premature sensual
wrinkles of lust; and his eyes bloodshot with last night's intemperance.
He sits there, the Emperor-boy, vainly trying to excite himself, and
forget her, in the blazonry of that pomp, and bids them call in the
prisoner.

A soldier enters, at whose side the prisoner has been chained for years.
This soldier is a tried veteran of the Praetorian cohorts. He was
selected, that from him this criminal could not escape; and for that
purpose they have been inseparably bound. But, as he leads that other
through the hall, he looks at him with a regard and earnestness which
say he is no criminal to him. Long since, the criminal has been the
guardian of his keeper. Long since, the keeper has cared for the
prisoner with all the ardor of a new-found son's affection.

They lead that gray-haired captive forward, and with his eagle eye he
glances keenly round the hall. That flashing eye has ere now bade
monarchs quail; and those thin lips have uttered words which shall make
the world ring till the last moment of the world shall come. The stately
Eastern captive moves unawed through the assembly, till he makes a
subject's salutation to the Emperor-judge who is to hear him. And when,
then, the gray-haired sage kneels before the sensual boy, you see the
prophet of the new civilization kneel before the monarch of the old! You
see Paul make a subject's formal reverence to Nero![11]

Let me do justice to the court which is to try him. In that
judgment-hall there are not only the pomp of Rome, and its crime; we
have also the best of its wisdom. By the dissolute boy, Nero, there
stands the prime minister S