of the state, was
multiplied beyond the example of former times; and (if we may borrow
the warm expression of a contemporary) "when the proportion of those
who received, exceeded the proportion of those who contributed, the
provinces were oppressed by the weight of tributes." From this period
to the extinction of the empire, it would be easy to deduce an
uninterrupted series of clamors and complaints. According to his
religion and situation, each writer chooses either Diocletian, or
Constantine, or Valens, or Theodosius, for the object of his invectives;
but they unanimously agree in representing the burden of the public
impositions, and particularly the land tax and capitation, as the
intolerable and increasing grievance of their own times. From such a
concurrence, an impartial historian, who is obliged to extract truth
from satire, as well as from panegyric, will be inclined to divide the
blame among the princes whom they accuse, and to ascribe their exactions
much less to their personal vices, than to the uniform system of their
administration. * The emperor Diocletian was indeed the author of that
system; but during his reign, the growing evil was confined within
the bounds of modesty and discretion, and he deserves the reproach of
establishing pernicious precedents, rather than of exercising actual
oppression. It may be added, that his revenues were managed with prudent
economy; and that after all the current expenses were discharged, there
still remained in the Imperial treasury an ample provision either for
judicious liberality or for any emergency of the state.

It was in the twenty first year of his reign that Diocletian executed
his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire; an action more
naturally to have been expected from the elder or the younger Antoninus,
than from a prince who had never practised the lessons of philosophy
either in the attainment or in the use of supreme power. Diocletian
acquired the glory of giving to the world the first example of a
resignation, which has not been very frequently imitated by succeeding
monarchs. The parallel of Charles the Fifth, however, will naturally
offer itself to our mind, not only since the eloquence of a modern
historian has rendered that name so familiar to an English reader, but
from the very striking resemblance between the characters of the two
emperors, whose political abilities were superior to their military
genius, and whose specious virtues were