gy of
Rome and the inquisition of Portugal. He condemned the ancient practice
of circumcision, which health, rather than superstition, had first
invented in the climate of AEthiopia. A new baptism, a new ordination,
was inflicted on the natives; and they trembled with horror when
the most holy of the dead were torn from their graves, when the most
illustrious of the living were excommunicated by a foreign priest. In
the defense of their religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms,
with desperate but unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were extinguished
in the blood of the insurgents: two abunas were slain in battle, whole
legions were slaughtered in the field, or suffocated in their caverns;
and neither merit, nor rank, nor sex, could save from an ignominious
death the enemies of Rome. But the victorious monarch was finally
subdued by the constancy of the nation, of his mother, of his son, and
of his most faithful friends. Segued listened to the voice of pity,
of reason, perhaps of fear: and his edict of liberty of conscience
instantly revealed the tyranny and weakness of the Jesuits. On the death
of his father, Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch, and restored
to the wishes of the nation the faith and the discipline of Egypt. The
Monophysite churches resounded with a song of triumph, "that the sheep
of AEthiopia were now delivered from the hyaenas of the West;" and the
gates of that solitary realm were forever shut against the arts, the
science, and the fanaticism of Europe.

Chapter XLVIII: Succession And Characters Of The Greek Emperors.--Part I.

Plan Of The Two Last Volumes.--Succession And Characters Of
The Greek Emperors Of Constantinople, From The Time Of
Heraclius To The Latin Conquest.

I have now deduced from Trajan to Constantine, from Constantine to
Heraclius, the regular series of the Roman emperors; and faithfully
exposed the prosperous and adverse fortunes of their reigns. Five
centuries of the decline and fall of the empire have already elapsed;
but a period of more than eight hundred years still separates me from
the term of my labors, the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. Should
I persevere in the same course, should I observe the same measure, a
prolix and slender thread would be spun through many a volume, nor would
the patient reader find an adequate reward of instruction or amusement.
At every step, as we sink deeper in the decline and fall of the
Eastern empi