r himself, the lesson or the warning of past times. From
the august character of a legislator, the sovereign of the East
descends to the more humble office of a teacher and a scribe; and if his
successors and subjects were regardless of his paternal cares, we may
inherit and enjoy the everlasting legacy.

[Footnote 1: The epithet of Porphyrogenitus, born in the purple, is
elegantly defined by Claudian:--

Ardua privatos nescit fortuna Penates;
Et regnum cum luce dedit.
Cognata potestas
Excepit Tyrio venerabile pignus in ostro.

And Ducange, in his Greek and Latin Glossaries, produces many passages
expressive of the same idea.]

[Footnote 2: A splendid Ms. of Constantine, de Caeremoniis Aulae et
Ecclesiae Byzantinae, wandered from Constantinople to Buda, Frankfort,
and Leipsic, where it was published in a splendid edition by Leich and
Reiske, (A.D. 1751, in folio,) with such lavish praise as editors never
fail to bestow on the worthy or worthless object of their toil.]

[Footnote 3: See, in the first volume of Banduri's Imperium Orientale,
Constantinus de Thematibus, p. 1-24, de Administrando Imperio, p.
45-127, edit. Venet. The text of the old edition of Meursius is
corrected from a Ms. of the royal library of Paris, which Isaac Casaubon
had formerly seen, (Epist. ad Polybium, p. 10,) and the sense is
illustrated by two maps of William Deslisle, the prince of geographers
till the appearance of the greater D'Anville.]

[Footnote 4: The Tactics of Leo and Constantine are published with the
aid of some new Mss. in the great edition of the works of Meursius,
by the learned John Lami, (tom. vi. p. 531-920, 1211-1417, Florent.
1745,) yet the text is still corrupt and mutilated, the version is still
obscure and faulty. The Imperial library of Vienna would afford some
valuable materials to a new editor, (Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. vi. p.
369, 370.)]

[Footnote 5: On the subject of the Basilics, Fabricius, (Bibliot.
Graec. tom. xii. p. 425-514,) and Heineccius, (Hist. Juris Romani,
p. 396-399,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i. p.
450-458,) as historical civilians, may be usefully consulted: xli.
books of this Greek code have been published, with a Latin version, by
Charles Annibal Frabrottus, (Paris, 1647,) in seven tomes in folio;
iv. other books have been since discovered, and are inserted in Gerard
Meerman's Novus Thesaurus Juris Civ. et Canon. tom. v. Of the whole
work, the six