greater number—­a zealous and fervent minority, at least must go hand in hand with him.  Rome demanded sacrifices in all who sought the Roman regeneration—­sacrifices of time, ease, and money.  The crowd followed the procession of the Senator, but not a single Roman devoted his life, unpaid, to his standard; not a single coin was subscribed in the defence of freedom.  Against him were arrayed the most powerful and the most ferocious Barons of Italy; each of whom could maintain, at his own cost, a little army of practised warriors.  With Rienzi were traders and artificers, who were willing to enjoy the fruits of liberty, but not to labour at the soil; who demanded, in return for empty shouts, peace and riches; and who expected that one man was to effect in a day what would be cheaply purchased by the struggle of a generation.  All their dark and rude notion of a reformed state was to live unbutchered by the Barons and untaxed by their governors.  Rome, I say, gave to her Senator not a free arm, nor a voluntary florin. (This plain fact is thoroughly borne out by every authority.) Well aware of the danger which surrounds the ruler who defends his state by foreign swords, the fondest wish, and the most visionary dream of Rienzi, was to revive amongst the Romans, in their first enthusiasm at his return, an organised and voluntary force, who, in protecting him, would protect themselves:—­not, as before, in his first power, a nominal force of twenty thousand men, who at any hour might yield (as they did yield) to one hundred and fifty; but a regular, well disciplined, and trusty body, numerous enough to resist aggression, not numerous enough to become themselves the aggressors.

Hitherto all his private endeavours, his public exhortations, had failed; the crowd listened—­shouted—­saw him quit the city to meet their tyrants, and returned to their shops, saying to each other, “What a great man!”

The character of Rienzi has chiefly received for its judges men of the closet, who speculate upon human beings as if they were machines; who gauge the great, not by their merit, but their success; and who have censured or sneered at the Tribune, where they should have condemned the People!  Had but one-half the spirit been found in Rome which ran through a single vein of Cola di Rienzi, the august Republic, if not the majestic empire, of Rome, might be existing now!  Turning from the people, the Senator saw his rude and savage troops, accustomed to the licence of a tyrant’s camp, and under commanders in whom it was ruin really to confide—­whom it was equal ruin openly to distrust.  Hemmed in on every side by dangers, his character daily grew more restless, vigilant, and stern; and still, with all the aims of the patriot, he felt all the curses of the tyrant.  Without the rough and hardening career which, through a life of warfare, had brought Cromwell to a similar power—­with more of grace and intellectual softness in his composition, he resembled that yet