which the proconsuls had commanded jointly at Sucro. One truth is beyond dispute-no man ever lived who has accomplished against such opponents, with such instruments, so much as did Sertorius.

At present we must consider him rather encumbered than assisted by Perpenna, a senator of high birth, vast fortune, and the most preposterous pretensions. This man had become the partisan of Marius only because he was despised and disappointed by Sylla. Ambitious of command, he had recently arrived in Spain, not to succour Sertorius, but to supersede him. His army did indeed consist principally of Italians collected from various regions, brave and skilful soldiers in the field, but disjointed and undisciplined partisans every where else; ill-restrained by a general, and his lieutenants not less capricious than themselves. In Rome, ten years before, he would have appeared, as compared with Sertorius, by much the most important: in his gown, and followed by his clients, he could have had but few competitors. Nor did it occur to him that a hundred battles fought since then by Sertorius would much vary the difference between them. His noble birth and Roman army entitled him to the usual superiority over a fortunate leader of barbarians. Hardly

had he crossed the Pyrenees, before these pleasing visions were interrupted by Metellus and Afranius; his army was overthrown, driven back among the mountains, besieged in its camp, and it would have been annihilated but for the intervention of Sertorius, who fell as heavily and unexpectedly upon them as they had fallen upon Perpenna.

Among so much geographical confusion, while war was carried on with an intricacy of which no explanation has been attempted, all round Spain at the same time, and in almost every province, we must be content to know that Metellus and Pompeius occupied principally the south-eastern half, and Sertorius the north-western. Yet were their camps separated by less than forty Roman miles. It was among the more mountainous districts bordering on Gaul and the ocean that Sertorius had collected his chief strength; in the territories and around the capital of Orcilis, a prince whose ancient kingdom, comprehending both Osca and Alba, was bounded by the river Iberus and Gallia Aquitanensis.

- A Valley bordered

by Forests on one Side, and Cliffs apparently inaccessible on the other. Superstitious Belief of the few Shepherds and Travellers who pass under them. · Their Recesses unlike these imaginary Representations. The Fountain there. The Idol. The Worshipper. The Victim. The Deity. The Supplication, — and the Messenger of the Sibyl.

THERE was space enough in the western Pyrenees for several independent principalities, till Rome overshadowed them, first as allies, and then as subjects. The largest of these diminutive kingdoms, nominally free, but protected by Sertorius, had absorbed the rest. As they were the weakest which most needed assistance from their confederates, a defensive unity of this kind was no usurpation. Alba and Concana, once metropolitan cities of their respective nations, had since become subordinate to Osca, and no more than provincial capitals under the same sovereignty.

The mountains between them rose higher by endless gradations as they receded from the south. Their long ranges looked down upon a country

populous, notwithstanding the devastations of war; fertile and opulent wherever the husbandman could be protected. Those apparently interminable plains which extended from their feet, had cities carefully garrisoned, citadels impreg nable against surprises or assaults, towns strongly walled, castles and villages surrounded by intrenchments, at least, wherever the inequalities of the ground were adapted to their defence. Even the lower mountains too were fortified by such obstructions as rendered them difficult of access. Every rock or ravine, if it were sufficiently precipitous, afforded a temporary place of refuge to its own neighbourhood.

But beyond and above these, were solitudes into the sanctity of which war could obtrude its cruel presence only as a stranger. They were a residence for the neatherd or the goatherd when he removed his charge to safer shelter or fresher pastures. Wildernesses intervened too barren even for him, which frowned away the spring, disdainful of its verdure. Here were forests of the ilex and the pine, recesses among rocks and glens seldom explored even by their few stationary inhabitants, wide moors, sterile plains, crags visited only by the kite or the eagle. And sometimes too, softer vallies lay

between, where grew a greener turf in cooler regions, districts refreshed and enlivened by their streams, ornamented and diversified rather than encumbered by their trees. Nature here appeared at ease, unconscious of boundaries and irresponsible to a proprietor. The few highways by which these solitudes were intersected, disappeared with the traveller. She suffered no lasting traces of man's sovereignty as a brandmark by which her future tribute and subjection might be reclaimed. It was only during the transit of some vagrant merchant with his slaves and mules, or some cohort glittering in arms, and returning from conquest with its captives, that they might be distinguished as thoroughfares. Two or three public roads, between the metropolitan cities, were indicated by the hoofs of horses, but no where could be discerned the trace of wheels.

Such was one of those long and level vallies, tufted on the lower part only with fern and broom, or dwarf bushes no higher than these, but which rested morning and evening under the shadow of forests ancient as its mountains on the western side, and of rocks apparently inaccessible on the eastern. A shallow river, dividing the greensward unequally, and lying like an uncoiled cable in easy curves, kept or