ibid.

[4] Torfaeus, Hist. Rer. Norweg. pars. 3. lib. 9. cap. 12.

[5] Munter, &c., ibid.

[6] Joannes Magnus, Hist. Gott. lib. 18. cap. 17.

II.

At the moment, Adrian IV. took his seat behind the helm of Peter's
bark, the winds and waves raged furiously against her, nor ceased to
do so, during the whole time that he steered her course. That time,
though short, was yet long enough to prove him a skilful and fearless
pilot,--as much so as the very foremost of his predecessors or
successors, who have acquired greater fame than he, simply because a
more protracted term of office enabled them to carry out to completer
results than he could do, designs in no wise loftier than Adrian's;
and, in so doing, to unveil before the world more fully than was
permitted to him, characters not, therefore, nobler or more richly
endowed than his.

The first difficulty with which the English pope had to grapple, on
his accession to power, was the refractory spirit of the citizens of
Rome, among whom Arnold of Brescia had, some time before, stirred up
the republican mania.

Arnold was a native of the city, indicated by his surname, and was
born there most likely about the year 1105. His was one of those proud
and ambitious natures, in which imagination and enthusiasm are mixed
up in far greater proportions, than judgment and sobriety. From his
childhood he developed shining parts and an ardor for study,
calculated to elicit their full force. To pursue his studies with as
little interruption as possible, he adopted, while yet a boy, the
clerical habit, and not long afterwards obtained minor orders. [1]

In those days, events were passing, at home and abroad, well adapted
to excite all that extravagance, which was to be expected from a
character like his. In Italy, it was the era of the spread of those
republican principles, which were at last fought out so heroically and
through such perils by the cities of Lombardy, against local barons
and transalpine emperors; in Europe, at large, it was the era of the
bloom of intellectual chivalry, whose seat was Paris, whose foremost
champion, Abailard. But it was also the era of a wide-spread
demoralization of the clergy, among whom simony and concubinage were
the order of the day; and, consequently, every other disorder which
naturally follows in the wake of those two capital vices. In the midst
of such a complicated state of things, requiring so much steadiness of
eye to view it pro