mbered; and at the end of twenty years, in the
recital of the history of Theophylact, the mournful tale was interrupted
by the tears of the audience.

Such tears must have flowed in secret, and such compassion would have
been criminal, under the reign of Phocas, who was peaceably acknowledged
in the provinces of the East and West. The images of the emperor and his
wife Leontia were exposed in the Lateran to the veneration of the
clergy and senate of Rome, and afterwards deposited in the palace of the
Caesars, between those of Constantine and Theodosius. As a subject and
a Christian, it was the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established
government; but the joyful applause with which he salutes the fortune of
the assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of the
saint. The successor of the apostles might have inculcated with decent
firmness the guilt of blood, and the necessity of repentance; he is
content to celebrate the deliverance of the people and the fall of the
oppressor; to rejoice that the piety and benignity of Phocas have been
raised by Providence to the Imperial throne; to pray that his hands may
be strengthened against all his enemies; and to express a wish,
perhaps a prophecy, that, after a long and triumphant reign, he may be
transferred from a temporal to an everlasting kingdom. I have already
traced the steps of a revolution so pleasing, in Gregory's opinion,
both to heaven and earth; and Phocas does not appear less hateful in
the exercise than in the acquisition of power The pencil of an impartial
historian has delineated the portrait of a monster: his diminutive and
deformed person, the closeness of his shaggy eyebrows, his red hair, his
beardless chin, and his cheek disfigured and discolored by a formidable
scar. Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged in
the supreme rank a more ample privilege of lust and drunkenness; and his
brutal pleasures were either injurious to his subjects or disgraceful
to himself. Without assuming the office of a prince, he renounced the
profession of a soldier; and the reign of Phocas afflicted Europe with
ignominious peace, and Asia with desolating war. His savage temper was
inflamed by passion, hardened by fear, and exasperated by resistance
of reproach. The flight of Theodosius to the Persian court had been
intercepted by a rapid pursuit, or a deceitful message: he was beheaded
at Nice, and the last hours of the young prince were