nd not with ideals of what
men should be. We look to the amazing benefits Rienzi conferred upon his
country. We ask his means, and see but his own abilities. His treasury
becomes impoverished--his enemies revolt--the Church takes advantage of
his weakness--he is excommunicated--the soldiers refuse to fight--the
People refuse to assist--the Barons ravage the country--the ways are
closed, the provisions are cut off from Rome. ("Allora le strade furo
chiuse, li massari de la terre non portavano grano, ogni die nasceva
nuovo rumore."--"Vita di Cola di Rienzi", lib. i. cap. 37.) A handful
of banditti enter the city--Rienzi proposes to resist them--the People
desert--he abdicates. Rapine, Famine, Massacre, ensue--they who deserted
regret, repent--yet he is still unassisted, alone--now an exile, now a
prisoner, his own genius saves him from every peril, and restores him
to greatness. He returns, the Pope's Legate refuses him arms--the People
refuse him money. He re-establishes law and order, expels the tyrants,
renounces his former faults (this, the second period of his power, has
been represented by Gibbon and others as that of his principal faults,
and he is evidently at this time no favourite with his contemporaneous
biographer; but looking to what he did, we find amazing dexterity,
prudence, and energy in the most difficult crisis, and none of his
earlier faults. It is true, that he does not shew the same brilliant
extravagance which, I suspect, dazzled his contemporaries, more than his
sounder qualities; but we find that in a few weeks he had conquered
all his powerful enemies--that his eloquence was as great as ever--his
promptitude greater--his diligence indefatigable--his foresight
unslumbering. "He alone," says the biographer, "carried on the affairs
of Rome, but his officials were slothful and cold." This too, tortured
by a painful disease--already--though yet young--broken and infirm. The
only charges against him, as Senator, were the deaths of Montreal and
Pandulfo di Guido, the imposition of the gabelle, and the renunciation
of his former habits of rigid abstinence, for indulgence in wine and
feasting. Of the first charges, the reader has already been enabled to
form a judgment. To the last, alas! the reader must extend indulgence,
and for it he may find excuse. We must compassionate even more than
condemn the man to whom excitement has become nature, and who resorts
to the physical stimulus or the momentary Lethe,