to an agreement with him, that he should be emperor in Britain. Cum Caraufio

tamen,

I mention the years of thofe emperors here, on account of fome of their medals Mrs. Benlow fpeaks of.. Note, fewks, though I fay the great and excellent Julian, where I mentioned this emperor, yet I am far from thinking his apoftacy a little ipot in his character. He is culpable indeed in this article. It is impoffible to excuse his fine understanding in that tranfaction; as it was eafy for it to diftinguifh the Chrift, the fon of the living God, from that Christ the athanafian priests had invented in their horrible confeffion of faith. Julian had done glorioufly to reje& the Jefus of thofe fathers of the church, who made our Lord to be equal in power, and all perfections, to his God and Father: But as it is fo extremely evident in the facred writings, that the true Jefus was a moft perfect pattern of all kinds of virtue, and of the moft fteady abftinence from all kinds of evil; his whole life a continued courfe of piety and goodnefs, and his fole concern for the honor and glory of the univerfal fatherthat he was at all times ready to do, or to fuffer, the holy will of the bleffed God;-that his doctrines, precepts, and promifes, are admirably adapted to reform the life, ta purify the heart, to exalt the affections, and restore the will to its true liberty; that the gospel enjoined the greatest fimplicity and spirituality of divine worship; and the whole fyftem and claims of our Lord were fupported by great and numerous miracles ; criminal was fulian in renouncing chriftianity. In this refpect, he is culpable indeed. But this excepted, he was, without all peradventure, as upright and excellent a man as ever honoured human nature. "Faites pour un moment abftraction des verités révelées; cherchez dans toute la nature, & nous n'y trouverez pas de plus grand objet que fulien meme. Il n'y a point eu aprés lui de prince plus digne de gouverner les hommes. Laying afide for a

moment

tamen, cui bella fruftrà tenata effent contrà virum rei militaris peritiffimum, ad extre

moment reveled truths, let us fearch through all nature, and we shall not find a nobler object than Julian himself. There has not been a prince fince his reign. more worthy to govern mankind. Julian was a Stoic: And if I could for a moment cease to think that I am a chriftian, (fays the baron de Montefquieu) Ifhould not be able to hinder myself from ranking the deftruction of the fect of Zeno*, among the misfortunes that have befallen the human race.

*Zeno, the founder of the Stoic fect, died in the ift year of the 129th olympiad, before Chrift, the year 264. His philofophy enabled him, and his difciples, to look upon riches, human grandeur, grief, difquietudes, and pleasure, as vanity, and intirely employed them in labouring for the happynefs of mankind, and in exercifing the dutys of fociety. It carryed to excess only those things in which there is true greatness, the contempt of pleasure and of pain. Glorious philofophy! True philofophers. They placed the fovereign good in rectitude of conduct in the conduct merely, and not in the event injuft, complete action throughout every part of life, whatever be the face of things, whether favorable, or the contrary. Their true and perfect man, without regard either to pleasure or pain, uninfluenced equally by either profperity or adverfity, fuperior to the world and its best and worst events, does fairly rest his all upon the rectitude of his own conduct; does conftantly, and uniformly, and manfully maintain it; thinking that, and that alone, wholly fufficient to make him happy. Few individuals it may be have ever arrived at this tranfcendence: Yet all may follow the beautiful exemplar; and in proportion, Jewks, as we approach, fo we advance proportionably in merit and in worth.

mùm

mùm pax convenit: which Genebrier thus tranflates- -Craignant que Caraufius ne vînt , a faire quelque plus grande enterprise hors de la Grande Bretagne, & qu'il ne vînt leur enlever les toutes Gaules, ne trouvent point de meilleur parti à prendre que de rechercher fon alliance. And if this great excellent man had not been murdered in the year 297, by his treacherous first minifter Alectus, he would, in all probability, have been fole emperor at laft, and in regard to his beloved Britons, might have removed the imperial feat from Rome to London *.

Near the altar I have defcribed, there was found an extraordinary fine urn of speckled marble, full of afhes, but had no infcription on it. That in this are contained the remains of Caraufius cannot be affirmed; tho it is probable enough; as this emperor was often in Scotland, and in league with the chiefs of the Picts, Scots, and Western Islands. They had the greatest regard for him, while living; and lamented him greatly, when dead: His ashes might be brought

* Alectus, the ufurper, who murdered Caraufius, was deftroyed by Conftantius, the father of Conftantine the Great, after he had held the tyranny near three years. Conftantius was one of the two Cæfars chofen by Dioclefian and Maximian in the year 288: And when Dioclefian divefted himself of the purple, A. D. 305; he yielded his fhare of the empire to Conftantius and Galerius.

to

to this country, to fave them from the deftroying Alectus. This is no more than fancy however. Perhaps that fporting fortune, which often confounds the afhes of the monarch with those of the flave, has given his to the scattering winds, and to be for ever unknown even in the field of his triumphs. Pour nous apprendre quelle eft la vanité des grandeurs humaines, & que la vertu la plus folide, & accompagnée de l'affection des fujets, ne met pas toujour un Soveraign, ni les peuples, a l'abri de plus grands revers.

Ah! non eft quicquam tutum, neque gloria,
Neque rurfum qui fælix, non futurum infelicem :
Sed mifcent Dei antrorfum et retrorfum,
Tumultum imponentes, ut futuri infcitia
Colamus illos *.

In vain by reason is the maze purfu'd,
Of ill triumphant, and afflicted good:
Why Socrates for truth and freedom fell *,
While Nero reign'd the delegate of hell,
Why

* Eurip. Hec.

The great and God-like Socrates fell a martyr for truth, religion, and virtue, by the wonted malignity of falfe placed zeal, and the hands of an idolatrous people, in the year before Chrift 400. His life and death were agreeable to the dignity of human nature, our duty to fociety, and religious fervice to the creator of all things. In youth, he was the son of temperance, in manhood the brother of focial love, and in age the father of wisdom. His

po

Why faints and fages mark'd in every age,
Perish, the victims of tyrannic rage.
But faft as time's fwift pinions can convey,
Haftens the pomp of that tremendous day,
When to the view of all created eyes,
God's high tribunal shall majestic rife;
When the loud trumpet shall affemble round
The dead, reviving at the piercing found!
When men and angels fhall to audit come,
And millions yet unborn receive their doom!
Then shall fair providence, to all difplay'd,
Appear divinely bright without a fhade;
In light triumphant, all her acts be shown,
And blushing doubt, eternal wisdom own,

By the way, reader, let me obferve to you, that the infcription on the altar, facrated to fortune for Caraufus, knocks up the author of the differtation on Oriuna; who tells us, that Oriuna on the filver coyn of Caraufius in the French king's cabinet, fignifys Diana,

politics confifted in the most uninfluenced patriotism, his philofophy in the most refined humanity, and his religion in the moft exalted notions and pure adoration of the only true God. By the firft he fired mankind with the moft undaunted zeal for the welfare of their country; by the fecond, he foftened their hearts to the tender feelings of benevolence and univerfal charity; and by the last he familiarized their minds to the idea of an allperfect Deity, and taught them almoft to anticipat on earth the joys of a glorious hereafter. In each of these he was himself a great example.

or