compassion. "We are poor, we are innocent, we are injured, we dare not pass through the streets a general persecution is exercised against our name and color. Let us die, O emperor but let us die by your command, and for your service" But the repetition of partial and passionate invectives degraded, in their eyes, the majesty of the purple; they renounced allegiance to the prince who refused justice to his people, lamented that the father of Justinian had been born,' and branded his son with the opprobrious names of an homicide, an ass, and a perjured tyrant. "Do you despise your lives?" cried the indignant monarch. The blues rose with fury from their seats, their hostile clamors thundered in the hippodrome, and their adversaries, deserting the unequal contest, spread terror and despair through the streets of Constantinople. At this dangerous moment, seven notorious assassins of both factions, who had been condemned by the præfect, were carried round the city, and afterwards transported to the place of execution in the suburb of Pera. Four were immediately beheaded; a fifth was hanged; but, when the same punishment was inflicted on the remaining two, the rope broke, they fell alive to the ground, the populace applauded their escape, and the monks of St. Conon, issuing from the neighboring convent, conveyed them in a boat to the sanctuary of the church. As one of these criminals was of the blue, and the other of the green, livery, the two factions were equally provoked by the cruelty of their oppressor or the ingratitude of their patron, and a short truce was concluded till they had delivered their prisoners and satisfied their revenge. The palace of the præfect, who withstood the seditious torrent, was nstantly burnt, his officers and guards were massacred, the prisons were forced open, and freedom was restored to those who could only use it for the public destruction. A military force which had been despatched to the aid of the civil magistrate was fiercely encountered by an armed multitude, whose bumbers and boldness continually increased and the Heruli, the wildest barbarians in the service of the empire, overturned the priests and their relics, which, from a pious motive, had been rashly interposed to separate the bloody conflict. The tumult was exasperated by this sacrilege; the people fought with enthusiasm in the cause of God; the women, from the roofs and windows, showered stones on the heads of the sol

over the

zens and strangers, spread without control city. The conflagration involved the cathedral of the baths of Zeuxippus, a part of the palace from entrance to the altar of Mars, and the long portico palace to the forum of Constantine: a large hospita sick patients, was consumed; many churches a edifices were destroyed; and an immense treasure o silver was either melted or lost. From such scenes and distress the wise and wealthy citizens escaped Bosphorus to the Asiatic side, and during five days nople was abandoned to the factions, whose watchw vanquish has given a name to this memorable sediti

As long as the factions were divided, the triumpl and desponding greens appeared to behold with th difference the disorders of the state. They agreed the corrupt management of justice and the finance two responsible ministers, the artful Tribonian and cious John of Cappadocia, were loudly arraigned as t of the public misery. The peaceful murmurs of would have been disregarded: they were heard wi when the city was in flames; the questor and the pr instantly removed, and their offices were filled by tv of blameless integrity. After this popular concession proceeded to the Hippodrome to confess his own err accept the repentance of his grateful subjects; but trusted his assurances, though solemnly pronounced sence of the holy gospels; and the emperor, alarme distrust, retreated with precipitation to the strong for palace. The obstinacy of the tumult was now im secret and ambitious conspiracy, and a suspicion was e that the insurgents, more especially the green faction supplied with arms and money by Hypatius and Po patricians who could neither forget with honor nor with safety, that they were the nephews of the emper sius. Capriciously trusted, disgraced, and pardoned by levity of the monarch, they had appeared as loya before the throne, and, during five days of the tu were detained as important hostages; till at length of Justinian prevailing over his prudence, he viewe

brothers in the light of spies, perhaps of assassins, and sternly commanded them to depart from the palace. After a fruitless representation that obedience might lead to involuntary treason, they retired to their houses, and in the morning of the sixth day Hypatius was surrounded and seized by the people, who, regardless of his virtuous resistance and the tears of his wife, transported their favorite to the forum of Constantine, and, instead of a diadem, placed a rich collar on his head. If the usurper, who afterwards pleaded the merit of his delay, had complied with the advice of his senate, and urged the fury of the multitude, their first irresistible effort might have oppressed or expelled his trembling competitor. The Byzantine palace enjoyed a free communication with the sea, vessels lay ready at the garden-stairs, and a secret resolution was already formed to convey the emperor with his family and treasures to a safe retreat at some distance from the capital.

Justinian was lost, if Theodora had not renounced the timidity as well as the virtues of her sex. In the midst of a council where Belisarius was present, she alone displayed the spirit of an hero, and she alone, without apprehending his future hatred, could save the emperor from the imminent danger and his unworthy fears. "If flight," said the consort of Justinian, (6 were the only means of safety, yet I should disdain to fly. Death is the condition of our birth, but they who have reigned should never survive the loss of dignity and dominion. I implore Heaven that I may never be seen, not a day, without my diadem and purple; that I may no longer behold the light when I cease to be saluted with the name of queen. If you resolve, O Cæsar! to fly, you have treasures; behold the sea, you have ships; but tremble lest the desire of life should expose you to wretched exile and ignominious death. For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the throne is a glorious sepulchre." The firmness of a woman restored the courage to deliberate and act, and courage soon discovers the resources of the most desperate situation. It was an easy and a decisive measure to revive the animosity of the factions. The blues were astonished at their own guilt and folly, that a trifling injury should provoke them to conspire with their implacable enemies against a gracious and liberal benefactor; they again proclaimed the majesty of Justinian; and the greens, with their upstart em,

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162

I GIVE MY SOLDIER-BOY A BLADE.

peror, were left alone in the hippodrome. The fidelity of the guards was doubtful; but the military force of Justinian consisted in three thousand veterans, who had been trained to valor and discipline in the Persian and Illyrian wars. Under the command of Belisarius and Mundus, they silently marched in two divisions from the palace, forced their obscure way through narrow passages, expiring flames, and falling edifices, and burst open at the same moment the two opposite gates of the hippodrome. In this narrow space the disorderly and affrighted crowd was incapable of resisting on either side a firm and regular attack; the blues signalized the fury of their repentance, and it is computed that above thirty thousand persons were slain in the merciless and promiscuous carnage of the day. Hypatius was dragged from his throne, and conducted with his brother Pompey to the feet of the emperor; they implored his clemency, but their crime was manifest, their innocence uncertain, and Justinian had been too much terrified to forgive. The next morning, the two nephews of Anastasius, with eighteen illustrious accomplices, of patrician or consular rank, were privately executed by the soldiers, their bodies were thrown into the sea, their palaces razed, and their fortunes confiscated. The hippodrome itself was condemned, during several years, to a mournful silence; with the restoration of the games the same disorders revived, and the blue and green factions continued to aflict the reign of Justinian, and to disturb the tranquillity of the Eastern empire. GIBDON.

I GIVE MY SOLDIER BOY A BLADE.

I GIVE my soldier boy a blade,

In fair Damascus fashion'd well;

Who first the glitt'ring falchion sway'd,
Who first beneath its fury fell,

I know not, but I hope to know
That for no mean or hireling trade,

To guard no feeling, base or low,
I give my soldier boy a blade.

Cool, calm, and clear, the lucid flood
In which its tempering work was done,
As calm, as clear, as cool of mood,

Be thou whene'er it sees the sun;
For country's claim, at honor's call.
For outraged friend, insulted maid,
At mercy's voice to bid it fall,

I give my soldier boy a blade,

The eye which mark'd its peerless edge,
The hand that weigh'd its balanced poise,
Anvil and pinchers, forge and wedge,
Are gone, with all their flame and noise-
And still the gleaming sword remains;
So, when in dust I low am laid,
Remember, by those heartfelt strains,
I gave my soldier boy a blade.

THE NUBIAN.

-MAGINN.

(The scene is laid in the English quarter of the Camp of the Crusaders.) RICHARD surveyed the Nubian in silence as he stood before him, his looks bent upon the ground, his arms folded on his bosom, with the appearance of a black marble statue of the most exquisite workmanship, waiting life from the touch of a Prometheus. The king of England, who, as it was emphatically said of his successor Henry the Eighth, loved to look upon A MAN, was well pleased with the thewes, sinews, and symmetry of him whom he now surveyed, and questioned him in the lingua Franca, "Art thou a pagan ?"

The slave shook his head, and raising his finger to his brow, crossed himself in token of his Christianity, then resumed his posture of motionless humility.

"A Nubian Christian, doubtless," said Richard, " and mutilated of the organ of speech by these heathen dogs?"

The mute again slowly shook his head, in token of negative, pointed with his forefinger to Heaven, and then laid it upon his own lips.

"I understand thee," said Richard; "thou dost suffer under the infliction of God, not by the cruelty of man. Canst thou clean an armour and belt, and buckle it in time of need?"

The mute nodded, and stepping towards the coat of mail, which hung with the shield and helmet of the chivalrous monarch, upon the pillar of the tent, he handled it with such nicety of address, as sufficiently to show that he fully understood the business of the armor-bearer.

"Thou art an apt, and wilt doubtless be a useful knave-thou shall wait in my chamber, and on my person," said the King, "to show how much I value the gift of the royal Soldan. If thou hast no tongue, it follows thou canst carry no tales, neither provoke me to be sudden by any unfit reply."