st pleasing compositions of
Claudian. Cowley's imitation (Hurd's edition, vol. ii. p. 241) has
some natural and happy strokes: but it is much inferior to the original
portrait, which is evidently drawn from the life.]

[Footnote 31:

Ingentem meminit parvo qui germine quercum
Aequaevumque videt consenuisse nemus.

A neighboring wood born with himself he sees,
And loves his old contemporary trees.

In this passage, Cowley is perhaps superior to his original; and the
English poet, who was a good botanist, has concealed the oaks under a
more general expression.]

[Footnote 32: Claudian de Bell. Get. 199-266. He may seem prolix: but
fear and superstition occupied as large a space in the minds of the
Italians.]

[Footnote 33: From the passages of Paulinus, which Baronius has
produced, (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 403, No. 51,) it is manifest that the
general alarm had pervaded all Italy, as far as Nola in Campania, where
that famous penitent had fixed his abode.]

Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.--Part II.

The emperor Honorius was distinguished, above his subjects, by the
preeminence of fear, as well as of rank. The pride and luxury in which
he was educated, had not allowed him to suspect, that there existed
on the earth any power presumptuous enough to invade the repose of the
successor of Augustus. The arts of flattery concealed the impending
danger, till Alaric approached the palace of Milan. But when the sound
of war had awakened the young emperor, instead of flying to arms with
the spirit, or even the rashness, of his age, he eagerly listened to
those timid counsellors, who proposed to convey his sacred person,
and his faithful attendants, to some secure and distant station in the
provinces of Gaul. Stilicho alone [34] had courage and authority to
resist his disgraceful measure, which would have abandoned Rome and
Italy to the Barbarians; but as the troops of the palace had been lately
detached to the Rhaetian frontier, and as the resource of new levies was
slow and precarious, the general of the West could only promise, that
if the court of Milan would maintain their ground during his absence,
he would soon return with an army equal to the encounter of the Gothic
king. Without losing a moment, (while each moment was so important
to the public safety,) Stilicho hastily embarked on the Larian Lake,
ascended the mountains of ice and snow, amidst the severity of an Alpine
winter, and suddenly