OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

sures and the patience of the city: the Colonnamaintained their hostile station at Palestrina ;and his mercenaries soon despised a leaderwhose ignorance and fear were envious of allsubordinate merit. In the death as in the life ofRienzi, the hero and the coward were strangelymingled. When the capitol was invested by afurious multitude, when he was basely desertedby his civil and military servants, the intrepidsenator, waving the banner of liberty, presentedhimself on the balcony, addressed his eloquenceto the various passions of the Romans, and la-boured to persuade them, that in the same causehimself and the republic must either stand orfall. His oration was interrupted by a volley ofimprecations and stones; and after an arrow hadtranspierced his head, he sunk into abject des-pair, and fled weeping to the inner chambers,from whence he was let down by a sheet beforethe windows of the prison. Destitute of aid orhope, he was besieged till the evening: the doorsof the capitol were destroyed with axes and fire;and while the senator attempted to escape in aplebeian habit, he was discovered and draggedto the platform of the palace, the fatal scene ofhis judgments and executions. A whole hour,without voice or motion, he stood amidst themultitude half naked and half dead; their ragewas hushed into curiosity and wonder: the lastfeelings of reverence and compassion yet strug-gled in his favour; and they might have prevail-ed, if a bold assassin had not plunged a daggerin his breast. He fell senseless with the firststroke; the impotent revenge of his enemies in-