The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [2287]
[Footnote 29: It was thus that Oliver Cromwell's old acquaintance, who remembered his vulgar and ungracious entrance into the House of Commons, were astonished at the ease and majesty of the protector on his throne, (See Harris's Life of Cromwell, p. 27 - 34, from Clarendon Warwick, Whitelocke, Waller, &c.) The consciousness of merit and power will sometimes elevate the manners to the station.]
[Footnote 30: See the causes, circumstances, and effects of the death of Andrew in Giannone, (tom. iii. l. xxiii. p. 220 - 229,) and the Life of Petrarch (Memoires, tom. ii. p. 143 - 148, 245 - 250, 375 - 379, notes, p. 21 - 37.) The abbe de Sade wishes to extenuate her guilt.]
[Footnote 31: The advocate who pleaded against Jane could add nothing to the logical force and brevity of his master's epistle.
Johanna! inordinata vita praecedens, retentio potestatis in regno, neglecta vindicta, vir alter susceptus, et excusatio subsequens, necis viri tui te probant fuisse participem et consortem. Jane of Naples, and Mary of Scotland, have a singular conformity.]
[Footnote *: In his letter to the archbishop of Prague, Rienzi thus describes the effect of his elevation on Italy and on the world: "Did I not restore real peace among the cities which were distracted by factions? did I not cause all the citizens, exiled by party violence, with their wretched wives and children, to be readmitted? had I not begun to extinguish the factious names (scismatica nomina) of Guelf and Ghibelline, for which countless thousands had perished body and soul, under the eyes of their pastors, by the reduction of the city of Rome and all Italy into one amicable, peaceful, holy, and united confederacy? the consecrated standards and banners having been by me collected and blended together, and, in witness to our holy association and perfect union, offered up in the presence of the ambassadors of all the cities of Italy, on the day of the assumption of our Blessed Lady." p. xlvii. In the Libellus ad Caesarem: "I received the homage and submission of all the sovereigns of Apulia, the barons and counts, and almost all the people of Italy. I was honored by solemn embassies and letters by the emperor of Constantinople and the king of England. The queen of Naples submitted herself and her kingdom to the protection of the tribune. The king of Hungary, by two solemn embassies, brought his cause against his queen and his nobles before my tribunal; and I venture to say further, that the fame of the tribune alarmed the soldan of Babylon. When the Christian pilgrims to the sepulchre of our Lord related to the Christian and Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem all the yet unheard-of and wonderful circumstances of the reformation in Rome, both Jews and Christians celebrated the event with unusual festivities. When the soldan inquired the cause of these rejoicings, and received this intelligence about Rome, he ordered all the havens and cities on the coast to be fortified, and put in a state of defence," p. xxxv. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 32: See the Epistola Hortatoria de Capessenda Republica, from Petrarch to Nicholas Rienzi, (Opp. p. 535 - 540,) and the vth eclogue or pastoral, a perpetual and obscure allegory.]
While Petrarch indulged these prophetic visions, the Roman hero was fast declining from the meridian of fame and power; and the people, who had gazed with astonishment on the ascending meteor, began to mark the irregularity of its course, and the vicissitudes of light and obscurity. More eloquent than judicious, more enterprising than resolute, the faculties of Rienzi were not balanced by cool and commanding reason: he magnified in a tenfold proportion the objects of hope and fear; and prudence, which could not have erected, did not presume to fortify, his throne. In the blaze of prosperity,