had gained over vice and usurpation, without depriving a single individual of his life. As he was proceeding to enlarge on the glorious prospect before them, the populace, in the warmth of their gratitude, or perhaps previously instructed, loudly declared RIENZI SHALL BE KING.

When their shouts had ceased, he protested that he would never assume a title which had been borne by Tarquin, by Nero, and Commodus. It was in vain that his partizans exerted all their efforts, and quoted his favourite poet, to prove (as we might prove under George the Third) that the blessings of liberty were never more perfectly enjoyed than under a good king. After a long, a real, or an affected struggle, he consented to be called TRIBUNE OF ROME; but under that unassuming title, appears to have exercised absolute authority, forgetting what the majority of his subjects probably did not know, that in the earlier and pure ages of the Roman republic, neither executive nor legislative powers were lodged in the hands of the Tribunus plebis, he being in fact as well as form defender of popular privileges, and a check on the consular and patrician branches of the old constitution.

But however incorrect or in

appropriate his appellation, he fulfilled every regal duty with honesty and zeal, redressing many grievances, and amending various abuses in the courts of law, and in the collection of the public revenues. On these occasions, the benefits derived from his exertions and his general popularity enabled him to overcome the enemies his character as a reformer created.

But a more afflicting, a formidable evil loudly demanded suppression. The power of the Roman nobility, who converted their palaces into fortresses, and having originally seized by vio lence and occupied by prescription the towers, gates and bridges of the city, maintained a species of petty sovereignty in their various districts, and disciplining their domestics, vassals, and dependents, occasionally issued forth as interest or passio stimulated, and rendered the streets. of the metropolis a scene of warfare and contention.

Rienzi at once, and without delay, destroyed this fruitful source of animosity and rebellion; he declared there should only be one Master in Rome, THE TRIBUNE ELECTED BY THE

relinquished them, and saw them either dismantled or occupied by the troops of Rienzi; for, although strong in public opinion, he saw the necessity of military power to support his authority, and soon after his election, embodied and arrayed a considerable number of men, whom in the present day we should call national guards or volunteers. Of these, on any occasion of danger or alarm, twenty thousand could speedily be assembled.

Rienzi had thus exerted his power and influence in effecting the only legitimate purposes for which they ought to be exerted; in alleviating the burthens, diminishing the oppression, and augmenting the comforts of his people. He extinguished the rights of sanctuaries and privileges which had been so much abused; he declared that no shelter should be a protection for crimes; that while he administered the supreme authority, honest men should rejoice, but villains tremble.

But the head of the Tribune, like other heads, was rendered giddy, by elevation and success; he gradually lost sight of that moderation and simplicity in manners, life and conversation for which he had hitherto been distinguished, he neglected or

despised those arts which caused him first to rise; he affected the dress and language of royalty.

This Tribune of the people had seven crowns alternately placed on his head, assumed a long and pompous title, affected the aristocratic dignity of knighthood, and displayed himself on festivals and days of public audience seated on a lofty throne, with a sceptre in his hand, and cloathed in velvet or satin, weighty with ornaments of gold.

He treated the Pope, the Emperor and other sovereign princes with haughtiness, indignity and contempt; and this reformer of luxury, vice and corruption, fascinated by the delicacy or the novelty of a well covered table, degenerated into an epicure and a glutton.

His enemies beheld this change with joy, the people with regret; and when once the tide of popularity subsided, the faults of Rienzi were watched and aggravated by the scrutinizing eyes of envy and malignity: the stern severity of his justice was called cruelty, his liberality was denominated profusion and generosity at the expense of other people; and the love of fame, which in all transactions, appeared the ruling passion of his soul, was

ridiculed

ridiculed and satirized as ignoble vanity, and unmanly ostentation.

The Tribune quickly perceived that he had lost the confidence of his original supporters, and that his inveterate enemies the nobles were intriguing and plotting against him. An insurrection of his opponents attacked his authority under and almost within the walls of Rome; the alarm bell was rung in vain; but the hour of enthusiasm and attachment were passed away, and after an ineffectual struggle, the once so popular and almost deified and adored was obliged to fly from Rome. Alternately, a fugitive, an exile, and at last a prisoner in a papal dungeon at Avignon, Rienzi heard of the distracted state of his native city, and the return of its tyrants with pity and grief.

After an absence of seven years, the reformer (zelator Italia) was liberated, and sent with papal and senatorial authority to restore peace and tranquility to the city from which he had been driven.

But the ardor of public spirit was cooled and repressed by adversity and experience. Cold distrust and hesitating doubt took the place of energy and unbounded confidence. His vices had augmented in the same pro

portion that his integrity was diminished. His power and authority were resisted by a considerable number of his former adherents, aided by the profligate, the idle, and the poor, incited by the nobility, who detested Rienzi, and dreaded the restoration of the good old cause. At length, after a four month's difficult administration, the Senator Rienzi was killed in a popular tumult. Such was the life and death of this extraordinarý man; who seems to have possessed talents admirably calculated for reforming abuse, and concentrating the energies of the million to one fixed and settled purpose; but he wanted self denial to resist the temptations which surround absolute power: and although Rienzi controuled and punished the oppressors of his country with spirit and effect, he appears to have made a contemptible prince. After having attained supreme power and driven out the destroyers, had he retired to his original private station, and committed his authority to pure and able hands, if any such at that unpropitious period could be found, his name would be handed down to posterity in a much more favorable point of view. Major privatu dum privatus, et omnium consensu capax imperii, si non imperasset.

For

For the materials and a good part of this article, I am indebted to Muratori, to the compilation of two indefatigable Jesuits, Brumoy and Cerceau, and to Mr. Gibbon. The Memoirs by the two reverend fathers, a copy of which, now before me, and which appears to have been at a certain time the property of the English historian, are mentioned in his notes; but Muratori's author, Fortifiocca, is generally referred to, in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

R

IPERDA, a native of Groningen, towards the close of the seventeenth century, for the materials of whose singular life and adventures we are indebted to the late Dr. Campbell, and for many new facts to the ingenious rector of Bemerton.

The last writer, admitted to sources of information which few private men can have any access to, has, in his apology for Sir Robert Walpole, performed the task committed to his care, in a dexterous and pleasing manner.

It must be confessed that when the transactions of ministers and statesmen are to be delineated and laid before the public, writer is placed in a situation peculiar and delicate; more par

ticularly when those individuals, to whom he is indebted for important papers, are immediate descendants from the illustrious persons whose history he writes.

To investigate characters, and decide on measures, when party zeal, inflamed resentments, and family prejudice have not had time to cool, has been aptly compared by Horace, to treading on ashes, beneath which, unextinguished fire is concealed: In such cases an author has a difficult part to act; to avoid the bias of gratitude and private interest; to speak not only truth but the whole truth; to avoid exciting the malignity of powerful enemies, but at the same time to preserve unblemished his integrity and literary reputation with the public.

Riperda, the subject of my present page, inheriting from nature activity and acuteness, and uniting, to a warm imagination, a more than moderate confidence in his own abilities, applied with indefatigable industry to literature and sci

ence.

After a well-planned and wellexecuted education, under the superintendance of his father, who was descended from a good family in the province where he resided, the young man passed the earlier part of his life in the army,