thousand in his train. At first, each man carried with him what was needful for the journey; but, before long, it became customary for the pious villagers to supply any Eremite who dwelt in their neighbourhood with provisions sufficient to entertain the Saint and his holy retinue.

In these visitations incidents not unfrequently occurred which may almost excite a smile. A solitary, who was somewhat niggardly, had been marked by Hilarion, in making out his list, as one to whose hospitality he would make no appeal. The monks about him, we are told, wished to cure their erring Brother of his fault, and entreated the Saint to change his arrange ment. We may here remark that, whatever other moral or intellectual deficiencies may be imputed to the Fathers of the Desert, they on no occasion exhibit any want of insight into the character of those around them; in this respect resembling most leaders of religious sects. It is, indeed, probable we might almost say certainthat the constant study and contemplation of their own deceitful hearts gave them this easy penetration into the motives of others. On this occasion accordingly the malice of the Brethren did not for a moment escape the quick eye of Hilarion, and he sternly reproved them for their want of charity. The spirit of the avaricious hermit was now however aroused, and his request being joined to that of the others, Hilarion conceded to him perhaps more readily than he desired the honour of entertaining the travellers.

Ten days after this the visit was paid; and the solitaries, their appetites sharpened by ill-will, proposed to themselves a luxurious repast on the hoarded vintage of the miser. A reckoning made in the absence of the host is proverbially erroneous, and so it happened in the present instance. At every access to the vineyard watchmen were stationed, who, with stones and clods of earth, which they flung with their hands or from slings, kept the hungry crew at bay, and next morning, their bellies empty and their steps faltering, the malevolent hermits pursued their weary way to some more hospitable dwelling, the Saint meanwhile laughing in his sleeve at

their well-merited discomfiture. The avaricious anchorite however was not left to triumph in the success of his stratagem, for we are told that his crop when gathered in was found to be far more scanty than usual, while even the gathering, scanty as it was, soon turned into vinegar.

Any feeling of covetousness was indeed most alien from the mind of Hilarion. An officer of Constantius's guard, in his gratitude for a cure the Saint had wrought upon him, urged upon his acceptance a large sum of money. For answer to his offer, Hilarion shewed him a loaf of barley bread. "Those whose food is like this," added he, "look on gold as mere dirt." And, as he found no trace of avarice in his own bosom, he was by no means disposed to tolerate it in the case of others. About five miles from the Saint dwelt a Brother whose hankering after the wealth that perisheth had drawn down upon him the displeasure of Hilarion, and caused him to be excluded from his presence. Apparently the offending hermit was one of those who wish at one and the same time to serve God and Mammon, and was anxious to regain the favour of the holy man without abandoning that worldliness of conduct by which he had forfeited it. He accordingly entreated the intercession of the Brethren who lived in Hilarion's monastery, and especially that of Hesychius, towards whom even at that time the Saint had shewn marks of regard that were afterwards justified by his zeal and fidelity. One day the disgraced solitary brought a little offering of chick-peas, by which he hoped to allay the wrath of Hilarion, and which the favourite Hesychius ventured to place on the evening board. No sooner did the scent of them reach the nostrils of the Saint than he exclaimed in the accents of disgust, "How now, Hesychius!-whence have you these chickpeas ?" peas ?" "Sire," replied the youth in alarm, "a Brother brought them here: they are the pride of his garden, and he thought they might be acceptable to the Brethren." " Away with them," returned the Saint with increasing indignation; "don't you smell the foul avarice that lurks in them: they stink of covetousness: even brute beasts could smell it away with them to the

cattle, and see how they like them." Hesychius placed them in the manger, and no sooner had he done so than the oxen bellowed and snorted, and gave every sign of horror, and at last, bursting their halters, fled in every direction. Hilarion, it appears, possessed the remarkable power of distinguishing men's vices by the mere scent of their persons, of their clothes, or of objects they had touched.

Gifts like these are not suffered to rust in disuse. Every day brought with it a fresh crowd of admirers, who at last caused the Old Man (his usual appellation in the narrative) such lively distress that, when in his sixty-third year he fell into a kind of languishing disorder, being frequently found with tears in his eyes, and sometimes exclaiming in a voice of anguish, "I have returned to the world, and have received my reward in my lifetime!" At length he resolved upon quitting a spot which now afforded him nothing but unhappiness.

In the mind of his biographer, to whom worldly applause was anything but indifferent, this determination excites an astonishment which he does not attempt to conceal. "Some people," says he, " may admire the wonderful works of the Saint, others his abstinence, his knowledge and humility; but I am surprised at nothing so much as that he could trample under foot honour and glory. Bishops and presbyters, clergy and monks, Christian matrons, too-a great temptation-came together in crowds, and from this side and that both city and country sent out their swarms: men of rank came among them, and magistrates, to take at the Saint's hands bread and oil which he had blessed." The popularity, however, that was the breath of Jerome's nostrils, was merely disgusting to the more delicate taste of Hilarion. But to carry his intention into effect was a work of some difficulty. On his making it known, more than ten thousand persons of both sexes came together to oppose his departure. At this moment the veil which concealed the future from the gaze of the holy man was suddenly withdrawn, and the woes which the vindictive Julian was in a few short years to bring upon the Faithful were clearly exhibited to his waking vision. Striking his staff upon

the sand he cried, "I know that my Lord is not a deceiver: and I cannot endure the sight of the churches overthrown, the altars of Christ trodden down, and the blood of my Sons poured forth." Though awed by these mysterious words, the crowd still ventured to withstand the purpose he announced. "I will eat no food," cried the saint, "I will take no drink, until you let me go." And this was no empty boast, for during seven days the enthusiasm of his followers compelled him to remain in self-imposed abstinence; and even then they accompanied him on his way, and only at Betilium, a town on the frontiers of Egypt, bade a reluctant farewell to the object of their veneration.

The remaining events of Hilarion's wandering life we must more briefly detail. He first made a pilgrimage to the cell of his old master Antony, and spent there a night in watching and prayer; then accompanied by Gazanus, once a poor stonecutter of Maiuma, and the favourite Hesychius, he proceeded to Bruchium, a suburb of Alexandria. As the shades of evening were falling, the Brethren of the monastery where he lodged heard in mournful astonishment the Saint giving orders to his disciples to saddle his ass, and, falling on their knees before the threshold, sought to delay his unexpected departure. The Old Man, however, held on his course, consoling them with the assurance that it was for their own good he was leaving them, and that before long the cause of his discourteous haste would be known. In fact the evil days which the Saint had beheld in ecstatic vision were now come upon the Church: the Arian Constantius was replaced by his pagan cousin, and that toleration was now refused to the Christians which in their day of power they had denied to others. On the morrow after Hilarion's leaving Bruchium, the lictors of the prefect of Alexandria, accompanied by a crowd of the people of Gaza, presented themselves at the gates of the monastery, and produced warrants for the apprehension of the heaven-warned fugitives. This narrow escape, however, admonished the Old Man to dismiss his beloved Hesychius to a separate retreat. He himself, attended only by the trusty Gazanus, found re

fuge for a time in the further Oasis. They thence made their way to the coast, and crossed over to Pachynus, the southernmost promontory of Sicily. In the depths of the forests that overspread this wild and barbarous region they took up their abode, supplying their scanty wants and those of their too numerous visitors by cutting faggots, which they sold for firewood at the nearest village.

The brief reign of Julian had now come to a violent end, and Hesychius, no longer in fear of arrest, commenced a loving search over sea and land for the master he had lost. At length at Methoné in the Peloponnese, he learnt from a Jew who was vending old clothes to the people, that a prophet of the Christians had appeared in Sicily. Arrived at Pachynus, he found the object of his search again meditating flight from the concourse of people whom the fame of his miracles had gathered round him. Epidaurus in Dalmatia and Paphos in Cyprus-the Saint's next places of refuge soon became, from the same cause, successively odious. But in the interior of the island Hesychius discovered a retreat which almost satisfied the somewhat exacting requirements of Hilarion. Embosomed amidst crags so precipitous that the only access was by creeping on the hands and knees, lay a rich bottom of land, where a limpid stream wound its way through smiling orchards, and the neighbouring ruins of a heathen temple sent forth day and night the unceasing howls of malignant demons. This latter circumstance, we are told, gave the place its chief charm in the eyes of Hilarion; and here, in unwearied conflict with the Foe, whom he now had at his very door, the Old Man spent five years of the highest enjoyment of which his restless nature was capable. The country people of the neighbourhood meanwhile kept close watch upon their honoured guest, lest some new caprice

should again send him wandering to distant realms. At the end of this time died the faithful Gazanus, and a few days after his saintly master breathed out in faith and hope his ardent spirit. The same jealous care which the rustics around had previously shewn in the case of the living man, was now transferred to his lifeless corpse, and a pious fraud alone enabled the favourite Hesychius to obtain the much-coveted possession of the body of his master.

At the time of the Old Man's decease he was absent in Palestine, and returning he hired the Saint's little garden, affecting the intention of imitating his seclusion. For ten months he watched, when the favourable moment arrived, and Hesychius, at the risk of his life, carried off the saint's body, with his hair shirt, his cowl, and his cloak, from which we are assured there exhaled an odour as sweet as if they had been anointed with the choicest unguents.

The monastery near Maiuma, which in Julian's time the fury or servility of the people of Gaza had razed to the ground, had now again risen from its ruins, and here the Eremite's remains were ultimately deposited.

It will not surprise us that the powers which had been so conspicuous in Hilarion when living, lingered after his decease in the places where his bones successively reposed. Even at the time when Jerome wrote, the contest for superiority in that respect still raged between the people of Palestine and those of Cyprus; the former priding themselves on the possession of the Eremite's body, the latter, with more reason, on that of his spirit. Signs and wonders indeed were wrought in both places; more especially, however, in the little garden of Cyprus, perchance, adds the biographer, because that was the spot with which his affections in his lifetime were more closely entwined.

GENT. MAG. VOL. XLII.

2 I

well began nearly ten years ago by his "History of Greece under the Roman Empire." He has accordingly been the chronicler of nearly eighteen centuries, and has delineated their events and changes with much spirit and unquestionable learning. That his volumes are readable is no ordinary praise, for Byzantine annals comprise an unprecedented amount of monotony-fierce and worthless ecclesiastical controversies alternating with the sanguinary feuds of the Hippodrome and the chronic oppression, or the occasional excesses, of despotism. It is difficult to select from this uniform and frequently stagnant mass of tyranny and subservience a few epochs of general interest or national vitality; and the palsy and suspension of life are the more striking from their immediate contrast with the regeneration of Western Europe by the multitude which "Rene and the Danau poured from their frozen loins."

In this his final volume Mr. Finlay describes the three last phases of Constantinopolitan history-the end of the Byzantine empire-the fortunes and decline of the Latin occupation of Constantinople-and the Greek empire under the dynasty of Palæologos. Our limits will permit of a brief glance only at the characteristics of each of these periods, which it may be convenient to remind the reader extend over the space of nearly four hundred years, and synchronise with those important epochs in Western Europe, the growth and formation of its monarchies, the vigour and decline of the Italian republics, the Crusades, the revival of ancient literature, and the dawn of modern science and philosophy.

Perhaps the most remarkable feature in Byzantine history is the duration of the empire for so many centuries after all the roots and fibres of national life had died away. It is indeed no new thing for a people which has been great to subsist for some generations upon the mere reputation of its strength. The weakness of Rome was long unsuspected by the fierce and warlike nations who rent away its richest provinces. Not until nearly the close of the eighteenth century was the decrepitude of Spain discerned by Europe. It retained the mines of the western Ophir and was therefore supposed to be rich; it inherited the renown of

Pavia and Lepanto, and was therefore presumed to be formidable. A similar delusion surrounded and secured the city of Constantine. It had not a foot of land left westward of the Adriatic; the Saracen was in Egypt and Syria; the Mongol and the Avar pressed on its northern frontier; its creed was accounted heretical by two-thirds of Christendom; its laws had been superseded or modified by the rude codes or ruder practice of feudal and municipal legislators. But, although with each succeeding generation the couriers who bore the imperial rescripts traversed a narrower circle of dependencies, the capital itself was long unassailed. The last retreat of the Roman eagles seemed to be endowed with a charmed life.

Theorists, who in the present day advocate the doctrines of pure centralization, would do well to study the Byzantine historians. From its cradle to its grave the Eastern empire is a reduction of their doctrines to practice. In every stage of its existence the executive absorbed all the functions of the state. Despotical monarchies in other lands have been the heirs of abused freedom, or the corruptors of the springs of national life; but at Constantinople despotic centralization was coeval with the city itself. There was no popular assembly to control the aristocracy; while the territorial nobility, who held as their exclusive possession the great offices of the state, had a direct interest in guarding a despotism, which any member of their body might aspire to wield, from the contact of popular innovation. The church, which in Western Europe often acted as a counterpoise to secular tyranny, busied itself in the Eastern metropolis with creeds and rituals alone, and on no occasion uplifted its voice, or spread its mantle, in behalf of the subjects of the state. Unfortunately for the bulk of mankind, Constantine, when he founded his system of administration, was, from his position as a fortunate soldier and a partyleader, unconnected with the popular or national sympathies of any dominant class, and regarded this state of isolation as the surest basis of power, and the best guarantee for the uniform administration of justice. His successors nurtured an error that accorded with their own selfish predilections, and