companied by P. Valerius, who afterwards acquired the surname of Publicola, Collatinus by the despised Brutus. They found the disconsolate matron, clothed in the garments of mourning, sitting in silent agony. The sight of those whom she longed for, gave utterance to her words and tears; she accused her violator; she received the oath of vengeance; and, having justified herself, she plunged a dagger into her heart, devoting herself and the spoiler of her peace to destruction; as the Consuls used to devote the hostile army, with themselves, to the Gods of Death, and rush upon their fate. Then did Brutus fling off his disguise, as Ulysses did the beggar's cloak. He snatched the bloody weapon from Lucretia's breast, and bound himself and his friends by an oath, to pursue Tarquinius and his accursed race with sword, with fire, and with weapons of every kind, and never to allow thenceforth a king to reign at Rome.

He removed the body to the market-place of Collatia. The citizens abjured the dominion of the tyrant; every one took up arms. The old men hastened to the walls; the young accompanied the funeral procession to Rome. Here they closed the gates. Brutus, as commander of the knights, summoned the people to assemble in the forum. The

a narrative which, almost more than any other part of his poems, decides its relation to modern literature, and our judgment respecting it, compared with the masterly sketch of Livy, which closes the first book, the chef d'œuvre of his whole history.

view of the body, the denunciations of Brutus stifled every fear; revengeful passions awakened in every breast. How could the multitude abandon those who had courage to resent, as men, an inexpiable crime? An unanimous resolution deprived the last king of his dignity, and pronounced upon him and his a sentence of banishment. Tullia escaped from the city unhurt. The populace, with loud execrations, invoked their revenge on her from the spirits of the murdered.

An army of volunteers marched with Brutus from the city against the camp. The king had already left it, on the report of the insurrection, and appeared before the walls of Rome, having avoided Brutus and his followers by a circuitous route. The gates were closed against him, and the troops during his absence had declared unanimously for the people. Accompanied by his two sons, Titus and Aruns, he withdrew to Care where they obtained shelter and protection. Sextus repaired to Gabii where he had ruled as a prince since the consummation of his treachery. This hardihood cost him his life. He could oppose nothing to the friends of those whom he had murdered and exiled, but his power, his person, and his dependants; and Rome, whom they had dreaded, now furnished them both example and countenance. This story also is differently told by Dionysius; he makes Sextus share the flight of his father, lead an army against Rome, and perish at the battle at the Regillus. How much more poetic is that defiance, and that blending of destinies which led him to the spot where he could not escape a vio

lent death; a vengeance, thus offered to those whom he had betrayed.

The expulsion of the kings was annually celebrated by a festival, the Regifugium or Fugalia, on the 24th of February. To this refers the statement of Dionysius 85, that in the year of the revolution four months were yet unexpired; that is, calculating loosely according to the Attic Calendar, whose first month coincided more or less with July, and presuming that the said festival was an historically fixed anniversary. But this is at least doubtful, and its connexion with the Terminalia, which it immediately follows, would perhaps only infer a general symbolically arranged choice of the day.

Notwithstanding this solemnity and the perpetual abolition of the name of king, the Romans were far from reflecting an indiscriminate hatred on the memory of the monarchical times. The statues of the kings, and amongst them it appears even that of the last Tarquinius, were preserved and probably multiplied. Their laws and institutions in civil as well as religious matters continued to exist in full efficacy. The change of the constitution originally affected only a single branch; and it never was the intention of the Romans to despoil themselves of a rich inheritance of laws and reminiscences. It is only in our own days that men have witnessed the consequences of that frenzy, which with a species of pride hitherto unparalleled, entailed upon itself humiliation and slavery, while it laid claim to unexampled perfection

85 V. c. 1.

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and boasted to form a new world from the chaos. Only once has the world seen (and we have seen) a general contempt of the past excited, and men priding themselves in the title of emancipated slaves. Something similar indeed, and somewhat similar results were experienced in the religious revolutions. The protestant churches have thrown aside the saints and fathers, and suffered in consequence. It is the same in science and literature. But on the contrary, the experience of universal history attests, that a nation can possess no wealth more splendid than a long and brilliant antiquity. All colonies languish under this defect. Those of the Greeks seldom wholly rent themselves in recollection from the stock of the parent state; modern colonies have done so, and have sunk by that unnatural abruption, perhaps still more than by any other circumstances into incurable deterioration.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ROME, UNTIL THE BATTLE AT THE
REGILLUS.

ROME was now without a head, and according to ancient usage the senate ought to have governed during the Interregnum. But more than a century had elapsed since the death of Ancus, and even during that interval two kings had ascended the throne without an election. Besides, the senate had lost several of its members during the tyranny of the last monarch, while they had nearly forfeited the esteem and confidence of the people by their rebellion against the venerable Priscus, which had brought upon the nation the yoke of the last reign. The adherents of the Tarquins were numerous in that assembly, as appears from the number of emigrants who subsequently fought against their country, and who certainly did not consist of the lower orders. Brutus, being the nearest relative of the king, was also formally in possession of that authority to which his services gave him the highest pretensions. Un