her from darkness into light. His court was not only the refuge of the unfortunate, but was the resort of all nations.

In the year 794, Queen Fastrada died, whose deeds had served to darken the splendour of her husband's character. About three years after this event, the famed Caliph of the East, Haroun al Raschid, struck with admiration of Charlemagne, sent him the keys of the holy places, together with a standard, as a mark of sovereignty in Jerusalem.

Shortly after the above period, the fourth wife of Charlemagne, Queen Hildegarde, died. She was a most beautiful and excellent woman, and passionately loved by the monarch.

Having been invited to Rome by the pope, Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Romans in the Church of St. Peter's, on a Christmas day, surrounded by all the splendid clergy of Italy. Approaching the altar, to offer up his prayers, arrayed in his Patrician robe, he knelt on the steps, and after ending them, was about to rise, when the pope, Leo, advanced, and raising an imperial crown, he placed it suddenly on the brows of the monarch, while the imperial salutations burst in thunder from the people, "Long life and victory to Charles Augustus, crowned by God great and pacific Emperor of the Romans!"

From that hour, the titles both of king and patrician were laid aside; and the monarch of the Francs became emperor of the Romans. Thenceforward his coins were inscribed with his new dignity, and his acts were dated from the years of his empire.

Some time after being crowned Emperor of the Romans, Charlemagne was acknowledged Emperor of the West. By unequalled efforts against a thousand enemies, he had nearly secured general peace, and sought to enjoy it; but, nevertheless, no desire of ease could prevent him from affording aid to such of his allies or dependents as required the support of military intervention. Already considerably past the age which his father and his grandfather had attained, Charlemagne, notwithstanding the great degree of corporeal vigour that he still enjoyed, and the robust constitution which promised years of health, determined to prepare against the approach of death, and to provide, as much as human foresight could, against those dissensions amongst his children which had caused the difficulties and cares of his own early reign, which might destroy the empire he had acquired, and sweep away the institutions he had founded.

He accordingly determined to remove all future cause of dispute, by himself allotting amongst his sons the territories which they were to possess at his death. His children at once gave their consent to that distribution which he thought fit to provide against the period of his death; and the general assembly of the nation sanctioned it without hesitation. The princes and the nobles swore to observe the partition; and a copy of the document was transmitted to the head of the Christian church, that the authenticity of the deed might be preserved undoubted, by a transcript, attested by the supreme pontiff himself, remaining in the archives of the church.

The farther dispositions of the monarch are directed to keep peace and amity amongst his children. No precaution was wanting on the part of the monarch to secure the future concord of his sons; and, under the warrant of the oath which they mutually took to obey his will, he commands them, in case of any dispute in regard to their territories, to abstain from arms, and to have recourse to the judgment of the cross, a judgment which, like every

other sort of ordeal, supposed the active interposition of God, to establish an earthly right.

Such was the charter of division; and certainly, the clearness of his judgment, and the benignity of his heart, were never more fully displayed than in that document.

The dominions of Charlemagne were now as extensive as the proudest ambition could well desire to possess, or the mightiest genius could pretend to govern. The whole of France and Belgium, with their natural boundaries of the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Rhine, formed no inconsiderable empire. But to those possessions were added, to the south, all that part of Spain comprised between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, and to the north, the whole of Germany to the banks of the Elbe. Italy, as far as the lower Calabria, was either governed by his eldest son Charles, or tributary to his crown; and Dalmatia, Croatia, Liburnia, and Istria, with the exception of the maritime cities, were joined to the conquered territories of Hungary and Bohemia. As far as the conflux of the Danube, with the Teyss and the Save, the east of Europe acknowledged the power of the Frankish monarch. Most of the Sclavonian tribes, between the Elbe and the Vistula, paid tribute and professed obedience; and Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles, were dependent on the emperor's possessions in Italy and Spain.

Such were the dominions of Charlemagne, at the conclusion of the Venetian war in 810, and such were the dominions which he proposed to leave divided amongst his sons.

This division was destined never to take place. A severe stroke awaited him. His first loss was that of his eldest daughter, Rotruda. Scarcely had the news of his son's victories over the Venetians reached his ears, when they were followed by the tidings of his decease; and scarcely had the monarch secured to the son of Pepin the kingdom which he had formerly assigned to the father, ere Charles, for whom the imperial throne had been reserved, was also called to the tomb.

Of the emperor's three sons, none now remained but Louis, King of Aquitaine, and in him centered all the affection of the monarch. At a general assembly of the people, their consent was unanimously given to the nomination of Louis as heir to the empire: And in the church of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charlemagne then, after a pious exhortation to his son, placed the crown on his head, as "a gift which he held from God, his father, and the nation.". Thus participating his son with him in dominion.

Notwithstanding frequent attacks of the gout, and a degree of lameness which that disease had left, he still followed the chase, in which he had always delighted, with unabated ardour, and still enjoyed the bath, wherein he had so long been accustomed to exercise himself in swimming. It was one day after he had been using the thermal waters at Aix-la-Chapelle, that he felt the first attack of that malady which terminated his life. He was suddenly seized with a violent pain in the side, which was soon proved to proceed from pleurisy. In common with all men who, during a long life, have possessed robust health, Charlemagne despised and rejected the aid of medicine, and imagining that abstinence was the sole remedy for all sorts of sickness, he refused food of every kind, and only allayed his feverish thirst with small quantities of water. The violence of his disease required more active means of cure; those were not employed, and at length, after a few

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THE PUNISHMENT OF A VESTAL.

day's illness, on the 28th of January, 814, Charles the Great expired, in the seventy-second year of his age, and the forty-seventh of his reign.

Above the ordinary height of men, Charlemagne was a giant in his stature as in his mind; but the graceful and easy proportion of all his limbs, he spoke the combination of wonderful activity with immense strength, and pleased while it astonished. His countenance was as striking as his figure; and his broad high forehead, his keen and flashing eye, and bland unwrinkled brow, offered a bright picture, wherein the spirit of physiognomy, natural to all men, might trace the expression of a powerful intellect and a benevolent heart. He was sober and abstemious in his food, and simple to an extreme in his garments. Passionately fond of robust exercises, they formed his great relaxation and amusement; but he never neglected the business of the public for his private pleasure, nor yielded one moment to repose or enjoyment which could be more profitably employed. His activity, his quickness, and his indefatigable energy in conducting the affairs of state, having already been spoken of at large, it only remains to be said, that in private life he was gentle, cheerful, affectionate, and kind; and that with his dignity guarded by virtues, talents, and mighty renown-he frequently laid aside the pomp of empire, and the sternness of command.

No man that ever lived combined, in so high a degree, those qualities which rule men and direct events, with those which endear the possessor and attach his contemporaries. No man was ever more trusted and loved by his people, more respected and feared by other kings, more esteemed in his lifetime, or more regretted at his death. And we end by saying, as Gibbon did of him, that Charlemagne is the only prince in whose favour the title of great has been indissolubly blended with the name. J. M. T.

THE PUNISHMENT OF A VESTAL.
(Painted by Peytavin)

Two particular duties were imposed on the priestesses of Vesta—the care and preservation of the holy fire, and the observance of the strictest continence. She who, by her negligence, suffered the sacred flame to become extinct, was severely scourged by the high-priest, the punishment being inflicted in an obscure place, and the Vestal closely veiled.

To those who violated their vow of virgin purity, was awarded capital punishment. Numa condemned them to be stoned. A posterior law enjoined that they should be decapitated; and it is believed that Tarquin the elder established the custom of burying them alive: this punishment was, for the first time, carried into effect under his reign. Two sisters, convicted of incest, obtained the privilege of Domitian to choose the manner of their death. Another was condemned to be precipitated from the summit of a rock; she fell without doing herself an injury: they had, however, the cruelty to renew the execution.

The Vestals were sometimes exposed to the torture, and when the proof of their crime appeared to be sufficiently established, votes were collected before punishment was pronounced.

On the day appointed for carrying out the sentence, the religious chief, followed by the pontiffs, went to the temple of the goddess, where the guilty person was despoiled of her ornaments, with every mark of degradation.

After having bound her with cords, they caused her to ascend a litter,