did the manner and the tone of the Senator exalt his language,
that even the sober sense of Adrian was enchanted and subdued. He kissed
the hand he held, and said earnestly,

"A doom that I will deem it my boast to share--a career that it will be
my glory to smooth. If I succeed in my present mission--"

"You are my brother!" said Rienzi.

"If I fail?"

"You may equally claim that alliance. You pause--you change colour."

"Can I desert my house?"

"Young Lord," said Rienzi, loftily, "say rather can you desert your
country? If you doubt my honesty, if you fear my ambition, desist from
your task, rob me not of a single foe. But if you believe that I have
the will and the power to serve the State--if you recognise, even in the
reverses and calamities I have known and mastered, the protecting hand
of the Saviour of Nations--if those reverses were but the mercies of Him
who chasteneth--necessary, it may be, to correct my earlier daring and
sharpen yet more my intellect--if, in a word, thou believest me one
whom, whatever be his faults, God hath preserved for the sake of Rome,
forget that you are a Colonna--remember only that you are a Roman!"

"You have conquered me, strange and commanding spirit," said Adrian, in
a low voice, completely carried away; "and whatever the conduct of my
kindred, I am yours and Rome's. Farewell."

Chapter 9.III. Adrian's Adventures at Palestrina.

It was yet noon when Adrian beheld before him the lofty mountains that
shelter Palestrina, the Praeneste of the ancient world. Back to a
period before Romulus existed, in the earliest ages of that mysterious
civilisation which in Italy preceded the birth of Rome, could be traced
the existence and the power of that rocky city. Eight dependent towns
owned its sway and its wealth; its position, and the strength of those
mighty walls, in whose ruins may yet be traced the masonry of the remote
Pelasgi, had long braved the ambition of the neighbouring Rome. From
that very citadel, the Mural Crown (Hence, apparently, its Greek name of
Stephane. Palestrina is yet one of the many proofs which the vicinity of
Rome affords of the old Greek civilization of Italy.) of the mountain,
had waved the standard of Marius; and up the road which Adrian's scanty
troop slowly wound, had echoed the march of the murtherous Sylla, on his
return from the Mithridatic war. Below, where the city spread towards
the plain, were yet seen the shattered and roofless columns