The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues and military talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government, announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity. By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an emperor and an exile, till-- GIBBON'S Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 220 ODE ΤΟ NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 'T is done-but yesterday a king! Is this the man of thousand thrones, Since he, miscall'd the morning star, Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind, With might unquestion'd,-power to save— Nor, till thy fall, could mortals guess 4621 Thanks for that lesson-it will teach To after-warriors more Than high philosophy can preach, That led them to adore Those pagod things of sabre-sway, The triumph, and the vanity, The desolator desolate! The victor overthrown! The arbiter of others' fate A suppliant for his own! Is it some yet imperial hope That with such change can calmly cope? Or dread of death alone? To die a prince-or live a slave Thy choice is most ignobly brave 1 Certaminis gaudia, the expression of Attila, in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus. |