horses, they had no sooner landed, than they swept the country with a body of light cavalry'. Yet, while the volcano of the south affected every part of the allegorical sea within its reach, its fury was chiefly directed against the western third part of that sea. Rome and the coasts of Italy were the principal sufferers: the eastern third part escaped with a comparatively trifling loss. An adequate, or at least a valuable, compensation was offered by the Eastern Emperor to purchase a necessary peace: and THE FURY OF THE VANDALS WAS CON

FINED TO THE LIMITS OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE.

We must not omit to notice the strict even geographical propriety, which characterises the poetical machinery of the present oracle. If Sicily had never been subjugated by the Vandals, the volcano of Etna might have seemed a less accurately decorous symbol of them because that island, though lying south of Italy, would not, in that case, have formed any part of their dominions. But the circumstance, of their having conquered Sicily, and of their having thus made Etna their own, renders the poetical machinery of the oracle round and blameless and absolutely perfect in all its component parts3.

III. And the third angel sounded: and there fell from heaven a great star, burning as it were

Hist. of Decline, vol. vi. p. 188. 2 Hist. of Decline, vol. vi. p. 189. ? Hist. of Decline, vol. vi. p. 146.

a lamp ; and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood : and the third part of the waters was changed to wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter! ! The first and second trumpets introduce the two plagues of the north-wind and the south-wind : hence the third trumpet must of necessity bring its plague either from the west or from the east. History, accordingly, will teach us, that the plague of the third trumpet is the plague of the west-wind. - As the plague of the south-wind blew upon Italy from the dismembered African provinces : so, on the same principle, the plague of the west-wind must blow upon it from those western European provinces, which stretch from the straits of Gibraltar to the Rhine and to the Alps. Now the effect produced by the wind of the third trumpet is the fall of a great star: and this star, by its fall, imbitters a third part of the allegorical rivers and fountains of the Empire, so that it might thence be well denominated Wormwood.

1. The plague of the south-wind, which hurled the symbolical Etna with all its fires into the midst of the sea, commenced in the year 439: the next marked event, which arrests our attention, is the fall of a great star from heaven.

Now the fall of a star from heaven, when inter

"Rev. viii. 10, 11.

may learn from the attestation of history, whether the plague of the third trumpet was brought by the west-wind or by the east-wind.

While Genseric was harassing the Roman world from the south, he sedulously instigated the Goths of Europe to make an effectual diversion from the west. In consequence of these intrigues, the Visigothic Theodoric violated his recent treaty with the Romans : and the ample territory of Narbonne, which he firmly united to his dominions, became the immediate reward of his perfidy. Theodoric was succeeded by Euric: and, in his reign, the design of extinguishing the Roman Empire in Spain and Gaul was conceived and almost completed. Of Spain, the whole was lost: and, throughout Gaul, Berry and Auvergne were the only cities or dioceses, which refused to acknowledge him as their master. These events took place between the years 462 and 472!

Meanwhile, after the battle of Chalons and the death of Attila, the bravest of the Gothic youth, who had served in the army of that prince, retreated into Italy: and there they became formidable as a band of confederates, in which the names of the Heruli, the Scyrri, the Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugii, appear to have predominated. These warriors saluted the famous Odoacer as their king: and to him was reserved the task of finally precipitating the great star from the political firmament. The son of Orestes, a youth recommended only by his

Hist. of Decline, vol. vi. p. 205, 206.