ing a word, but indicating by the unchanging heaviness of his brow and his gloomy look that he intended to fill Rome with slaughter. After the audience was over, they marched to the city. Cinna entered, accompanied by his guards, but Marius, halting at the gates, angrily affected to have some scruples about entering he said he was an exile, and was excluded from his country by a law, and if anybody wanted to have him in the city, they must go to the vote again and undo the vote by which he was banished, just as if he were a man who respected the laws and were returning from exile to a free state. Accordingly, he summoned the people to the forum ; but before three or four of the tribes had voted, throwing off the mask, and setting aside all the talk about being legally recalled, he entered with some guards selected from the slaves who had flocked to him, and were called Bardiæi. These fellows killed many persons by his express orders, and many on the mere signal of his nod; and at last meeting with Ancharius, a senator who had filled the office of prætor, they struck him down with their daggers in the presence of Marius, when they saw that Marius did not salute him. After this, whenever he did not salute a man or return his salute, this was a signal for them to massacre him forthwith in the streets, in consequence of which even the friends of Marius were filled with consternation and horror when they approached him. The slaughter was now great, and Cinna's appetite was dulled and he was satisfied with blood; but Marius daily went on with his pas sion at the highest pitch and thirsting for vengeance, through the whole list of those whom he suspected in any degree. And every road and every city were filled with the pursuers, hunting out those who attempted to escape and conceal themselves; and the ties of hospitality and friendship were proved to be no secu. rity in misfortune, for there were very few who did not betray those who sought refuge with them. This rendered the conduct of the slaves of Cornutus the more worthy of praise and admiration, for they concealed their master at home, and hanging up by the neck the dead body of some obscure person, and putting a gold ring on his finger, they showed him to the guards of Marius,

and then, wrapping up the body as if it were their master's, they interred it. The device went unsuspected, and Cornutus being thus secreted by his slaves, made his escape to Gaul.

The orator Marcus Antonius found a faithful friend, but still he did not escape. This man, though poor, and of the lower class, received in his house one of the most illustrious of the Romans, and, wishing to entertain him as well as he could, he sent a slave to one of the neighbouring wine-shops to get some wine. As the slave was more curious than usual in tasting it, and told the man to give him some better wine, the merchant asked what could be the reason that he did not buy the new wine, as usual, and the ordinary wine, but wanted some of good quality and high price. The slave replied in his simplicity, as he was speaking to an old acquaintance, that his master was entertaining Marcus Antonius, who was concealed at his house. The wine-dealer, a faithless and unprincipled wretch, as soon as the slave left him, hurried off to Marius, who was at supper, and, having gained admission, told him that he would betray Marcus Antonius to him. On hearing this, Marius is said to have uttered a loud shout, and to have Clapped his hands with delight; and he was near getting up and going to the place himself, but his friends stopped him, and he despatched Annius with some soldiers, with orders to bring him the head of Antonius immediately. On reaching the house, Annius waited at the door, and the soldiers, mounting the stairs, entered the room; but on seeing Antonius every man began to urge some of his companions and push him forward to do the deed instead of himself. And so powerful were the charm and persuasion of his eloquence, when Antonius began to speak and pray for his life, that not a man of them could venture to lay hands on him or look him in the face, but they all bent their heads down and shed tears. As this caused some delay, Annius went up-stairs, where he saw Antonius speaking and the soldiers awed and completely softened by his eloquence; on which he abused them, and running up to Antonius, cut off his head with his own hand. The friends of Catulus Lutatius, who had been joint-consul with Marius, and with him had triumphed over the

Cimbri, interceded for him with Marius, and begged for his life, but the only answer they got was, "He must die!" and accordingly Catulus shut himself up in a room, and lighting a quantity of charcoal, suffocated himself. Headless trunks, thrown into the streets and trampled under foot, excited no feeling of compassion, but only a universal shudder and alarm. But the people were most provoked by the licence of the Bardiæi, who murdered fathers of families in their houses, defiled their children, and vio lated their wives; and they went on plundering and committing violence, till Cinna and Sertorius, combining, attacked them when they were asleep in the camp, and transfixed them with spears.

In the meantime, as if the wind was beginning to turn, reports reached Rome from all quarters that Sulla had finished the war with Mithridates, and recovered the provinces, and was sailing against the city with a large force. This intelligence caused a brief cessation and pause to unspeakable calamities, for Marius and his faction were in expectation of the immediate arrival of their enemies. Now being elected consul for the seventh time, on the very Calends of January, which is the beginning of the year, Marius caused one Sextus Lucinus to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, which appeared to be a presage of the great mis fortunes that were again to befall the partisans of Marius and the State. But Marius was now worn out with labour, and, as it were, drowned with cares, and cowed in his spirit: and the experience of past dangers and toil made him tremble at the thoughts of a new war, and fresh struggles and alarms; and he could not sustain himself when he reflected that now he would have to hazard a contest, not with Octavius or Merula at the head of a tumultuous crowd and seditious rabble, but that Sulla was advancingSulla, who had once driven him from Rome, and had now confined Mithridates within the limits of his kingdom of Pontus. With his mind crushed by such reflections, and placing before his eyes his long wanderings and escapes and dangers in his flight by sea and by land, he fell into a state of deep despair, and was troubled with nightly alarms and terrific dreams, in which he thought he heard a voice continually calling out—

"Dreadful is the lion's lair

Though he is no longer there."

As he greatly dreaded wakeful nights, he gave himself up to drinking and intoxication at unseasonable hours and to a degree unsuited to his age, in order to procure sleep, as if he could thus elude his cares. At last, when a man arrived with news from the sea, fresh terrors seized him, partly from fear of the future and partly from feeling the burden and the weariness of the present state of affairs; and while he was in this condition a slight disturbance sufficed to bring on a kind of pleurisy, as the philosopher Posidonius relates, who also says that he had an interview and talked with him on the subject of his embassy, while Marius was sick. But one Caius Piso, an historian, says that Marius, while walking about with some friends after supper, fell to talking of the incidents of his life, beginning with his boyhood, and after enumerating his many vicissitudes of fortune, he said that no man of sense ought to trust fortune after such reverses; upon which he took leave of his friends, and keeping his bed for seven successive days, thus died. Some say that his ambitious character was most completely disclosed during his illness by his falling into the extravagant delusion that he was conducting the war against Mithridates, and he would then put his body into all kinds of attitudes and movements, as he used to do in battle, and accompany them with loud shouts and frequent cheers. So strong and unconquerable a desire to be engaged in that war had his ambitious and jealous character instilled into him; and therefore, though he had lived to be seventy years of age, and was the first Roman who had been seven times consul, and had made himself a family, and wealth enough for several kings, he still bewailed his fortune, and complained of dying before he had attained the fulness and completion of his desires.

COLERIDGE.-To leave the every-day circle of society, in which the literary and scientific rarely-the rest never-break through the spell of personality; where anecdote reigns everlastingly paramount and exclusive, and the mildest attempt to generalise the Babel of facts, and to control temporary and individual phenomena by the application of eternal and ever-ruling principles, is unintelligible to many, and disagreeable to more; to leave this species of converse, if converse it deserves to be called, and pass an entire day with Coleridge, was a marvellous change indeed. It was a Sabbath past expression, deep, and tranquil, and serene. You came to a man who had travelled in many countries and in critical times, who had seen and felt the world in most of its ranks and in many of its vicissitudes and weaknesses-one to whom all literature and genial art were absolutely subject, and to whom, with a reasonable allowance as to technical details, all science was in a most extraordinary degree familiar. Throughout a long-drawn summer's day would this man talk to you in low, equable, but clear and musical tones, concerning things human and divine; marshalling all history, harmonising all experiment, probing the depths of your consciousness, and revealing visions of glory and of terror to the imagination; but pouring withal such floods of light upon the mind, that you might for a season, like Paul, become blind in the very act of conversion. And this he would do without so much as one allusion to himself, without a word of reflection on others, save when any given act fell naturally in the way of his discourse, without one anecdote that was not proof and illustration of a previous position; gratifying no passion, indulging no caprice, but, with a calm mastery over your soul, leading you onward and onward for ever through a thousand windings, yet with no pause, to some magnificent point in which, as in a focus, all the parti-coloured rays of his discourse should converge in light. In all this he was, in truth, your teacher and guide; but in a little while you might