THE DELUXE AND FALL

CM W>Xl.vin.

work. The first chapter will contain, in a re-gular series, the emperors who reigned at Con-stantinople during a period of six hundredyears, from the days of Heraclius to the Latin conquest: a rapid abstract, which may be sup-ported by a general appeal to the order andtext of the original historians. In this intro-duction I shall confine myself to the revolutionsof the throne, the succession of families, thepersonal characters of the Greek princes, themode of their life and death, the maxims andinfluence of their domestic government, and thetendency of their reign to accelerate or suspendthe downfall of the eastern empire. Such achronological review will serve to illustrate thevarious argument of the subsequent chapters;and each circumstance of the eventful story ofthe barbarians will adapt itself in a properplace to the Byzantine annals. The inter*nal state of the empire, and the dangerous here-sy of the Paulicians, which shook the East andenlightened the West, will be the subject of twoseparate chapters ; but these inquiries must bepostponed till our farther progress shall haveopened the view of the world in the ninth andtenth centuries of the Christian era. After thisfoundation of Byzantine history, the followingnations w ill pass before our eyes, and each willoccupy the space to which it may be entitledby greatness or merit, or the degree of connec-tion with the Roman w orld and the present age.I. The Franks ; a general appellation whichincludes all the barbarians of France, Italy ,and Germany , who were united bv the sword