of their powers,
and affected to deride the intemperance and sloth of the handful of
Barbarians who appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian prince.
His reply is expressed with the eloquence of indignation and truth: "We
confess the magnitude of your preparation," says the great-grandson of
Charlemagne. "Your armies were indeed as numerous as a cloud of summer
locusts, who darken the day, flap their wings, and, after a short
flight, tumble weary and breathless to the ground. Like them, ye sunk
after a feeble effort; ye were vanquished by your own cowardice; and
withdrew from the scene of action to injure and despoil our Christian
subjects of the Sclavonian coast. We were few in number, and why were
we few? Because, after a tedious expectation of your arrival, I had
dismissed my host, and retained only a chosen band of warriors to
continue the blockade of the city. If they indulged their hospitable
feasts in the face of danger and death, did these feasts abate the vigor
of their enterprise? Is it by your fasting that the walls of Bari have
been overturned? Did not these valiant Franks, diminished as they were
by languor and fatigue, intercept and vanish the three most powerful
emirs of the Saracens? and did not their defeat precipitate the fall
of the city? Bari is now fallen; Tarentum trembles; Calabria will be
delivered; and, if we command the sea, the Island of Sicily may be
rescued from the hands of the infidels. My brother," accelerate (a
name most offensive to the vanity of the Greek,) "accelerate your naval
succors, respect your allies, and distrust your flatterers." [4]

[Footnote 1: For the general history of Italy in the ixth and xth
centuries, I may properly refer to the vth, vith, and viith books of
Sigonius de Regno Italiae, (in the second volume of his works, Milan,
1732;) the Annals of Baronius, with the criticism of Pagi; the viith and
viiith books of the Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli of Giannone; the
viith and viiith volumes (the octavo edition) of the Annali d' Italia
of Muratori, and the 2d volume of the Abrege Chronologique of M. de St.
Marc, a work which, under a superficial title, contains much genuine
learning and industry. But my long-accustomed reader will give me credit
for saying, that I myself have ascended to the fountain head, as often
as such ascent could be either profitable or possible; and that I have
diligently turned over the originals in the first volumes of Muratori's
gre