knew his merit, accepted this extraordinary compromise.]

[Footnote 119: The promotion of Andronicus was illegal; since he was a
native of Berenice, in the same province. The instruments of torture are
curiously specified; the press that variously pressed on distended the
fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears, and the lips of the victims.]

[Footnote 120: The sentence of excommunication is expressed in a
rhetorical style. (Synesius, Epist. lviii. p. 201-203.) The method of
involving whole families, though somewhat unjust, was improved into
national interdicts.]

[Footnote 121: See Synesius, Epist. xlvii. p. 186, 187. Epist. lxxii. p.
218, 219 Epist. lxxxix. p. 230, 231.]

VI. Every popular government has experienced the effects of rude or
artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is animated, the firmest reason
is moved, by the rapid communication of the prevailing impulse; and each
hearer is affected by his own passions, and by those of the surrounding
multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the demagogues of
Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching which seems
to constitute a considerable part of Christian devotion, had not been
introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears of monarchs were
never invaded by the harsh sound of popular eloquence, till the pulpits
of the empire were filled with sacred orators, who possessed some
advantages unknown to their profane predecessors. [122] The arguments
and rhetoric of the tribune were instantly opposed with equal arms,
by skilful and resolute antagonists; and the cause of truth and
reason might derive an accidental support from the conflict of hostile
passions. The bishop, or some distinguished presbyter, to whom he
cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the
danger of interruption or reply, a submissive multitude, whose minds had
been prepared and subdued by the awful ceremonies of religion. Such was
the strict subordination of the Catholic church, that the same concerted
sounds might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy or Egypt,
if they were tuned [123] by the master hand of the Roman or Alexandrian
primate. The design of this institution was laudable, but the fruits
were not always salutary. The preachers recommended the practice of the
social duties; but they exalted the perfection of monastic virtue, which
is painful to the individual, and useless to mankind. Their charitable
exhortations betrayed a