st be the last object my eyes will mark!
Or if myself a victim--." He paused--shrank from the thought presented
to him--turned to a recess of the chamber--drew aside a curtain, that
veiled a crucifix and a small table, on which lay a Bible and the
monastic emblems of the skull and crossbones--emblems, indeed, grave and
irresistible, of the nothingness of power, and the uncertainty of life.
Before these sacred monitors, whether to humble or to elevate, knelt
that proud and aspiring man; and when he rose, it was with a lighter
step and more cheerful mien than he had worn that day.

Chapter 4.III. The Actor Unmasked.

"In intoxication," says the proverb, "men betray their real characters."
There is a no less honest and truth-revealing intoxication in
prosperity, than in wine. The varnish of power brings forth at once the
defects and the beauties of the human portrait.

The unprecedented and almost miraculous rise of Rienzi from the rank of
the Pontiff's official to the Lord of Rome, would have been accompanied
with a yet greater miracle, if it had not somewhat dazzled and seduced
the object it elevated. When, as in well-ordered states and tranquil
times, men rise slowly, step by step, they accustom themselves to
their growing fortunes. But the leap of an hour from a citizen to a
prince--from the victim of oppression to the dispenser of justice--is
a transition so sudden as to render dizzy the most sober brain. And,
perhaps, in proportion to the imagination, the enthusiasm, the genius
of the man, will the suddenness be dangerous--excite too extravagant a
hope--and lead to too chimerical an ambition. The qualities that made
him rise, hurry him to his fall; and victory at the Marengo of his
fortunes, urges him to destruction at its Moscow.

In his greatness Rienzi did not so much acquire new qualities, as
develop in brighter light and deeper shadow those which he had always
exhibited. On the one hand he was just--resolute--the friend of
the oppressed--the terror of the oppressor. His wonderful intellect
illumined everything it touched. By rooting out abuse, and by searching
examination and wise arrangement, he had trebled the revenues of the
city without imposing a single new tax. Faithful to his idol of liberty,
he had not been betrayed by the wish of the people into despotic
authority; but had, as we have seen, formally revived, and established
with new powers, the Parliamentary Council of the city. However
extensiv