an listened to his eloquence and wisdom; and envy
was mitigated by the gentleness and affability of his manners. The
reproaches of impiety and avarice have stained the virtue or the
reputation of Tribonian. In a bigoted and persecuting court, the
principal minister was accused of a secret aversion to the Christian
faith, and was supposed to entertain the sentiments of an Atheist and
a Pagan, which have been imputed, inconsistently enough, to the last
philosophers of Greece. His avarice was more clearly proved and more
sensibly felt. If he were swayed by gifts in the administration of
justice, the example of Bacon will again occur; nor can the merit of
Tribonian atone for his baseness, if he degraded the sanctity of his
profession; and if laws were every day enacted, modified, or repealed,
for the base consideration of his private emolument. In the sedition of
Constantinople, his removal was granted to the clamors, perhaps to the
just indignation, of the people: but the quaestor was speedily restored,
and, till the hour of his death, he possessed, above twenty years, the
favor and confidence of the emperor. His passive and dutiful submission
had been honored with the praise of Justinian himself, whose vanity was
incapable of discerning how often that submission degenerated into the
grossest adulation. Tribonian adored the virtues of his gracious of
his gracious master; the earth was unworthy of such a prince; and he
affected a pious fear, that Justinian, like Elijah or Romulus, would be
snatched into the air, and translated alive to the mansions of celestial
glory. [74]

[Footnote 71: For the legal labors of Justinian, I have studied the
Preface to the Institutes; the 1st, 2d, and 3d Prefaces to the Pandects;
the 1st and 2d Preface to the Code; and the Code itself, (l. i. tit.
xvii. de Veteri Jure enucleando.) After these original testimonies,
I have consulted, among the moderns, Heineccius, (Hist. J. R. No.
383--404,) Terasson. (Hist. de la Jurisprudence Romaine, p. 295--356,)
Gravina, (Opp. p. 93-100,) and Ludewig, in his Life of Justinian,
(p.19--123, 318-321; for the Code and Novels, p. 209--261; for the
Digest or Pandects, p. 262--317.)]

[Footnote 72: For the character of Tribonian, see the testimonies of
Procopius, (Persic. l. i. c. 23, 24. Anecdot. c. 13, 20,) and Suidas,
(tom. iii. p. 501, edit. Kuster.) Ludewig (in Vit. Justinian, p.
175--209) works hard, very hard, to whitewash--the blackamoor.]

[Footnote