incapable of giving us any clue to the actions of Rienzi—­utterly unable to explain the conduct of the man by the circumstances of the time.  The weakness of his vision causes him, therefore, often to squint.  We must add to his want of wisdom a want of truth, which the Herodotus-like simplicity of his style frequently conceals.  He describes things which had no witness as precisely and distinctly as those which he himself had seen.  For instance, before the death of Rienzi, in those awful moments when the Senator was alone, unheard, unseen, he coolly informs us of each motion, and each thought of Rienzi’s, with as much detail as if Rienzi had returned from the grave to assist his narration.  These obvious inventions have been adopted by Gibbon and others with more good faith than the laws of evidence would warrant.  Still, however, to a patient and cautious reader the biography may furnish a much better notion of Rienzi’s character, than we can glean from the historians who have borrowed from it piecemeal.  Such a reader will discard all the writer’s reasonings, will think little of his praise or blame, and regard only the facts he narrates, judging them true or doubtful, according as the writer had the opportunities of being himself the observer.  Thus examining, the reader will find evidence sufficient of Rienzi’s genius and Rienzi’s failings:  Carefully distinguishing between the period of his power as Tribune, and that of his power as Senator, he will find the Tribune vain, haughty, fond of display; but, despite the reasonings of the biographer, he will not recognise those faults in the Senator.  On the other hand, he will notice the difference between youth and maturity—­hope and experience; he will notice in the Tribune vast ambition, great schemes, enterprising activity—­which sober into less gorgeous and more quiet colours in the portrait of the Senator.  He will find that in neither instance did Rienzi fall from his own faults—­he will find that the vulgar moral of ambition, blasted by its own excesses, is not the true moral of the Roman’s life; he will find that, both in his abdication as Tribune, and his death as Senator, Rienzi fell from the vices of the People.  The Tribune was a victim to ignorant cowardice—­the Senator, a victim to ferocious avarice.  It is this which modern historians have failed to represent.  Gibbon records rightly, that the Count of Minorbino entered Rome with one hundred and fifty soldiers, and barricadoed the quarter of the Colonna—­that the bell of the Capitol sounded—­that Rienzi addressed the People—­that they were silent and inactive—­and that Rienzi then abdicated the government.  But for this he calls Rienzi “pusillanimous.”  Is not that epithet to be applied to the People?  Rienzi invoked them to move against the Robber—­the People refused to obey.  Rienzi wished to fight—­the People refused to stir.  It was not the cause of Rienzi alone which demanded their exertions—­it was the cause of the People—­theirs, not