d
Triumvirate, when he was proscribed by the taste of Mark Antony for the
sake of his Corinthian plate.

[38] Montesquieu, that eloquent philosopher, conciliates the rights of
liberty and of nature, which should never be placed in opposition to
each other.

[39] We are indebted for this interesting fact to a fragment of Asconius
Pedianus, who flourished under the reign of Tiberius. The loss of his
_Commentaries on the Orations of Cicero_ has deprived us of a valuable
fund of historical and legal knowledge.

[40] The extension of the Empire and _city_ of Rome obliged the exile to
seek a more distant place of retirement.

[41] When he fatigued his subjects in building the Capitol, many of the
laborers were provoked to despatch themselves: he nailed their dead
bodies to crosses.

[42] The sole resemblance of a violent and premature death has engaged
Vergil to confound suicides with infants, lovers, and persons unjustly
condemned. Some of his editors are at a loss to deduce the idea or
ascertain the jurisprudence of the Roman poet.

AUGUSTINE'S MISSIONARY WORK IN ENGLAND

A.D. 597

THE VENERABLE BEDE[43] JOHN RICHARD GREEN

St. Augustine was the first archbishop of Canterbury. He was
educated in Rome under Pope Gregory I, by whom he was sent to
Britain with forty monks of the Benedictine order, for the purpose
of converting the English to Christianity. Bertha, wife of
Ethelbert, king of Kent, was a Christian. She was a daughter of
Charibert, king of Paris, and had brought her chaplain with her,
who held services in the ruined church of St. Martin, near
Canterbury.

There seemed little prospect, however, of the faith spreading among
the wild islanders until Augustine arrived on the Isle of Thanet
A.D. 596. The occasion of his being sent on this missionary errand
is said to have been connected with an incident which has often
been related, wherein it appears that Gregory, while yet a monk,
struck with the beauty of some heathen Anglo-Saxon youths exposed
for sale in the slave market at Rome, inquired concerning their
nationality. Being told that they were Angles, he said: "_Non Angli
sed angeli_ ['Not Angles, but angels'], and well may, for their
angel-like faces it becometh such to be coheirs with the angels in
heaven. In what province of England do they live?" "Deira" was the
reply. "From _Dei ira_ ['God