ccused; and the
retreat of the two brothers might be justified by the defence of their
life and liberty. The women of the family were deposited in a sanctuary,
respected by tyrants: the men, mounted on horseback, sallied from the
city, and erected the standard of civil war. The soldiers who had been
gradually assembled in the capital and the neighborhood, were devoted
to the cause of a victorious and injured leader: the ties of common
interest and domestic alliance secured the attachment of the house of
Ducas; and the generous dispute of the Comneni was terminated by the
decisive resolution of Isaac, who was the first to invest his younger
brother with the name and ensigns of royalty. They returned to
Constantinople, to threaten rather than besiege that impregnable
fortress; but the fidelity of the guards was corrupted; a gate was
surprised, and the fleet was occupied by the active courage of George
Palaeologus, who fought against his father, without foreseeing that he
labored for his posterity. Alexius ascended the throne; and his aged
competitor disappeared in a monastery. An army of various nations was
gratified with the pillage of the city; but the public disorders were
expiated by the tears and fasts of the Comneni, who submitted to every
penance compatible with the possession of the empire.

The life of the emperor Alexius has been delineated by a favorite
daughter, who was inspired by a tender regard for his person and
a laudable zeal to perpetuate his virtues. Conscious of the just
suspicions of her readers, the princess Anna Comnena repeatedly
protests, that, besides her personal knowledge, she had searched the
discourses and writings of the most respectable veterans: and after an
interval of thirty years, forgotten by, and forgetful of, the world, her
mournful solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear; and that truth,
the naked perfect truth, was more dear and sacred than the memory of her
parent. Yet, instead of the simplicity of style and narrative which wins
our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science betrays
in every page the vanity of a female author. The genuine character of
Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of virtues; and the perpetual
strain of panegyric and apology awakens our jealousy, to question the
veracity of the historian and the merit of the hero. We cannot, however,
refuse her judicious and important remark, that the disorders of the
times were the misfortune and the