be considered as the most profligate of the _Italians_. At the same aera,
the _Spaniards_ were the terror both of the Old and New World: but their
high-spirited valor was disgraced by gloomy pride, rapacious avarice,
and unrelenting cruelty. Indefatigable in the pursuit of fame and
riches, they had improved, by repeated practice, the most exquisite and
effectual methods of torturing their prisoners: many of the Castilians,
who pillaged Rome, were familiars of the holy inquisition; and some
volunteers, perhaps, were lately returned from the conquest of Mexico
The _Germans_ were less corrupt than the Italians, less cruel than the
Spaniards; and the rustic, or even savage, aspect of those _Tramontane_
warriors, often disguised a simple and merciful disposition. But they
had imbibed, in the first fervor of the reformation, the spirit, as well
as the principles of Luther. It was their favorite amusement to insult,
or destroy, the consecrated objects of Catholic superstition; they
indulged, without pity or remorse, a devout hatred against the clergy
of every denomination and degree, who form so considerable a part of
the inhabitants of modern Rome; and their fanatic zeal might aspire to
subvert the throne of Antichrist, to purify, with blood and fire, the
abominations of the spiritual Babylon.

The retreat of the victorious Goths, who evacuated Rome on the sixth
day, might be the result of prudence; but it was not surely the effect
of fear. At the head of an army encumbered with rich and weighty spoils,
their intrepid leader advanced along the Appian way into the southern
provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose his passage, and
contenting himself with the plunder of the unresisting country. The fate
of Capua, the proud and luxurious metropolis of Campania, and which
was respected, even in its decay, as the eighth city of the empire,
is buried in oblivion; whilst the adjacent town of Nola has been
illustrated, on this occasion, by the sanctity of Paulinus, who was
successively a consul, a monk, and a bishop. At the age of forty, he
renounced the enjoyment of wealth and honor, of society and literature,
to embrace a life of solitude and penance; and the loud applause of the
clergy encouraged him to despise the reproaches of his worldly friends,
who ascribed this desperate act to some disorder of the mind or body.
An early and passionate attachment determined him to fix his humble
dwelling in one of the suburbs of