the whole is this. If the successors of Augustus are still considered as the sixth head of the beast, even when they no longer possessed the temporal supremacy of Augustus; no reason can be shewn, why the successors of Charlemagne should not still be considered as the last head of the beast, although they now no longer possess the temporal supremacy * of Charlemagne †.

(3.) With

and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him from "the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new era from the "restoration of the Western empire." The very pagans indeed, as Cardinal Baronius observes, mourned for Charlemagne as the father of the world: "ipsos paganus eum planxisse quasi patrem orbis." Annal. Eccles. A. D. 814.

Since this was written the Carlovingian emperorship of the West has been transferred to France, and the real temporal supremacy of Charlemagne has been revived. June 1, 1806.

And yet more lately the chief of the House of Austria has formally resigned the Carlovingian emperorship; the ancient Germanic body has been dissolved; and a new feudal empire, comprehending nearly the whole of that country, has been formed subject to France. The present representative of Charlemagne, in short, reigns from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, and from the modern confines of Russia to the Atlantic, even where it washes the coasts of Portugal. Nov. 20. 1807.

The relics of that temporal supremacy, which constituted the Carlovingian line of Emperors the last head of the beast, may be clearly traced in the famous Golden bull enacted under the Emperor Charles 1v. in the year 1356. In this bull each of the Electors is required to swear, that, to the best of his discernment he will choose a temporal chief for the Christian people" who may be worthy of that station: and it is afterwards ordered, that none of them shall quit the city of Frankfort,

« until

(3.) With regard to the identity of the ancient Augustan imperial dignity and the modern Carlobingian imperial dignity, it exists but in imagination. The two resemble each other merely in name: in all other respects there is so great a dif ference between them, that they cannot with any propriety be considered as forming only one head. They differ in these respects.

The Augustan Emperorship was a single head, immediately succeeding the five which had fallen, and seated during the latter part of its existence at Constantinople contemporaneously with the last

"until they shall have, by a plurality of voices, élected and "given to the world, or to the Christian people, a temporal chief, "namely a king of the Romans, future Emperor." With the same now empty affectation of the Carlovingian supremacy, the Archbishop of Cologne is styled Arch-chancellor of the Holy Empire in Italy; the Archbishop of Triers, Árch-chancellor of the Holy Empire in France and Arles; and the Archbishop of Mentz, Arch-chancellor of the Holy Empire in Germany. The whole of the Golden bull may be seen in Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. xxx. Bp. Newton indeed does not deny, that the Carlovingian Emperorship is a head of the beast; only he supposes it to be a continuation of the sixth head, instead of its being the distinct double last head. Such a scheme however appears to me extremely unnatural. When the sixth head was continued from the days of Constantine in the persons of the Constantinopolitan Emperors, and consequently when it was actually in existence at the time of the rise of the Carlovingian Emperorship, it seems very far fetched to say, that it was continued in the line of the Carlovingian Emperors, the very first of whom did not flourish till upwards of three centuries after the downfall of the old western empire under Augustulus.

VOL. H

ន

head,

head. The Carlovingian Emperorship is a double head, consisting of the Patriciate merging into the feudal imperial dignity, whence I have styled it the septimo-octave head-The Augustan Emperorship was composed of a line of real Roman princes †, who administered the very Empire that was erected by the valour of the five first heads. The Carlovingian Emperorship was composed of a line of Gothic princes, who had invaded and occupied the territories of the sixth head-The Augustan Emperorship was sometimes hereditary, and sometimes conferred by the military violence of the Pretorian guards. The Carlovingian Emperorship has sometimes indeed been hereditary, but has for the most part been elective, the right of election being vested in a certain number of princes-The Augustan Emperorship was always attached to territorial possessions, insomuch that, if the reigning Emperor had not been Emperor, he would have been no more than a private man. The Carlovingian Emperorship was never attached to territorial possessions, as such; the prince, who enjoyed that dignity, sometimes being of one family and sometimes of another, holding his proper

It is worthy of notice, that St. John gives no intimation, that the sixth head should fall previous to the rise of the septimooctave head, though he states so particularly that the five first heads had fallen previous to the rise of the sixth head.

I

When I say real Roman princes, I only mean princes born in regions that acknowledged the sovereignty of the Augustan Emperors, not princes literally born at Rome or in Italy.

dominions by a quite distinct tenure from his Emperorship, being at once an hereditary sovereign and an elective Emperor, and rarely since the days of Charlemagne possessing a single foot of ground in his imperial capacity *. Accordingly, the dignity of the Carlovingian Emperorship has been borne alternately by a King of France, a Duke of Franconia, a Duke of Suabia, a Duke of Bavaria, a King of Bohemia, a King of Naples, and a King of Spain ; whose hereditary territories were entirely independent of their imperial rank-Finally, the Augustan Emperorship consisted of a line of military despots, ruling, like the Turkish monarchs, over a nation of slaves. The Carlovingian Emperorship has ever constituted its possessor the chief of a Gothic feudal confederacy. When this last particular is fully considered, we shall scarcely find any two lines of princes more dissimilar than the Augustan and the Carlovingian Emperors. The principles of feudalism, brought by the northern tribes out of their native forests,

and

* Charlemagne's sovereignty of Italy gradually melted away into the imperial fiefs.

I pretend not accurately to state all the variations of descent in the Carlovingian imperial dignity: I merely ob serve, in general terms, that it has been attached at different times to all these different families.

The rudiments of feudalism may be clearly discovered in the account which Tacitus gives of the ancient Germans. In their yet infant state of society, their princes, instead of granting to their counts or feudal vassals, manors and estates

and carried to perfection in France, Germany, and Italy, draw an indelible line of difference between the sixth and the last head of the beast: and we must possess the power of imagination in a very high degree to suppose, that Charlemagne, surrounded by his Gothic military vassals, the Paladins, Dukes, and Counts of his Empire, or that the modern Emperors of the Romans, the feudal superiors of a long train of Electors, Princes, Margraves, and Landgraves, form a continuation of the Augustan Emperors of Rome and Constantinople, merely because they also have borne the title of Emperors*. So far indeed is the sovereign

of

subject to military service, presented them with horses and lances, and gained their affection by rude though plentiful entertainments. See Tac. de Mor. Germ. c. 13, 14.

* The Italian Romances are curious and even valuable, asdepicting with considsrable accuracy, from the legends of the ancient troubadours, the state of Gothic manners in the Carlovingian age. Whoever has read the poems of Boyardo and Ariosto will find it no easy matter to discover any resemblance between the court of the warlike sovereign of Orlando, Rinaldo, and Bradamant, and that of the Roman Cesars; and history will teach him, that there is just as little resemblance between their respective principles of government. Mr. Gibbon very truly observes, that "the victorious nations of Germany "established a new system of manners and government in the "western countries of Europe." Hist. of Decline. vol. vi. P. 404.

The sceptre of Charlemagne has recently been transferred from Germany to France. Still however is the new empire of the West constructed on those very principles of feudalism which characterized the original empire of Charlemagne. An

assemblage