s rude and savage troops, accustomed to the
licence of a tyrant's camp, and under commanders in whom it was ruin
really to confide--whom it was equal ruin openly to distrust. Hemmed
in on every side by dangers, his character daily grew more restless,
vigilant, and stern; and still, with all the aims of the patriot, he
felt all the curses of the tyrant. Without the rough and hardening
career which, through a life of warfare, had brought Cromwell to a
similar power--with more of grace and intellectual softness in his
composition, he resembled that yet greater man in some points of
character--in his religious enthusiasm; his rigid justice, often
forced by circumstance into severity, but never wantonly cruel or
blood-thirsty; in his singular pride of country; and his mysterious
command over the minds of others. But he resembled the giant Englishman
far more in circumstance than original nature, and that circumstance
assimilated their characters at the close of their several careers.
Like Cromwell, beset by secret or open foes, the assassin's dagger ever
gleamed before his eyes; and his stout heart, unawed by real, trembled
at imagined, terrors. The countenance changing suddenly from red to
white--the bloodshot, restless eye, belying the composed majesty of
mien--the muttering lips--the broken slumber--the secret corselet; these
to both were the rewards of Power!

The elasticity of youth had left the Tribune! His frame, which had
endured so many shocks, had contracted a painful disease in the dungeon
at Avignon ("Dicea che ne la prigione era stato ascarmato." "Vita di
Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. cap. 18.)--his high soul still supported him,
but the nerves gave way. Tears came readily into his eyes, and often,
like Cromwell, he was thought to weep from hypocrisy, when in truth
it was the hysteric of over-wrought and irritable emotion. In all his
former life singularly temperate, ("Solea prima esser sobrio, temperato,
astinente, or a e diventato distemperatissimo bevitore," &c.--Ibid.) he
now fled from his goading thoughts to the beguiling excitement of wine.
He drank deep, though its effects were never visible upon him except
in a freer and wilder mood, and the indulgence of that racy humour,
half-mirthful, half-bitter, for which his younger day had been
distinguished. Now the mirth had more loudness, but the bitterness more
gall.

Such were the characteristics of Rienzi at his return to power--made
more apparent with every d