can understand their feelings if we compare them with those of our own countrymen when the sullen tyranny of Henry VIII. was followed by the youthful virtue and gentleness of Edward VI.  Happy would it have been for Nero if his reign, like that of Edward, could have been cut short before the thick night of many crimes had settled down upon the promise of its dawn.  For the first five years of Nero’s reign—­the famous Quinquennium Neronis—­were fondly regarded by the Romans as a period of almost ideal happiness.  In reality, it was Seneca who was ruling in Nero’s, name.  Even so excellent an Emperor as Trajan is said to have admitted “that no other prince had nearly equalled the praise of that period.”  It is indeed probable that those years appeared to shine with an exaggerated splendour from the intense gloom which succeeded them; yet we can see in them abundant circumstances which were quite sufficient to inspire an enthusiasm of hope and joy.  The young Nero was at first modest and docile.  His opening speeches, written with all the beauty of thought and language which betrayed the style of Seneca no less than his habitual sentiments, were full of glowing promises.  All those things which had been felt to be injurious or oppressive he promised to eschew.  He would not, he said, reserve to himself, as Claudius had done, the irresponsible decision in all matters of business; no office or dignity should be won from him by flattery or purchased by bribes; he would not confuse his own personal interests with those of the commonwealth; he would respect the ancient prerogatives of the Senate; he would confine his own immediate attention to the provinces and the army.

Nor were such promises falsified by his immediate conduct.  The odious informers who had flourished in previous reigns were frowned upon and punished.  Offices of public dignity were relieved from unjust and oppressive burdens.  Nero prudently declined the gold and silver statues and other extravagant honours which were offered to him by the corrupt and servile Senate, but he treated that body, which, fallen as it was, continued still to be the main representative of constitutional authority, with favour and respect.  Nobles and officials begun to breathe more freely, and the general sense of an intolerable tyranny was perceptibly relaxed.  Severity was reserved for notorious criminals, and was only inflicted in a regular and authorized manner, when no one could doubt that it had been deserved.  Above all, Seneca had disseminated an anecdote about his young pupil which tended more than any other circumstance to his wide spread popularity.  England has remembered with gratitude and admiration the tearful reluctance of her youthful Edward to sign the death-warrant of Joan Boucher; Rome, accustomed to a cruel indifference to human life, regarded with something like transport the sense of pity which had made Nero, when asked to affix his signature to an order for execution, exclaim, “How I wish that I did not know how to write!”