way of fine, the assistance of the Arabs was implored against this tyranny. In 665, the Greeks were defeated and lost eighty thousand men. The Arabs had now begun to form a navy, and were eminently successful in their early maritime expeditions. Six times their fleets appeared before Constantinople, but were as often repelled by the terrible Greek fire. These armaments having exhausted the resources of the caliphate, Moawiyah solicited peace, which was granted on his consenting to pay a tribute of fifty horses, as many slaves, and three thousand purses of gold, 677. At his death, three years afterwards, a civil war broke out; but the unity of the empire was re-established by the devotion of the brave Hegiage, who destroyed successively all the enemies of the house of Ommiyah. Under Abdel Malek, India was conquered; and during the government of his son Walid I. communications were opened with China,-a circumstance that should be kept in mind, since it is probable that from the latter country the Arabs derived part of their knowledge in science and manufactures. The writers of that nation are the first who make mention of a spirit extracted from rice, of tea, porcelain, and other Chinese commodities.

AFRICA REDUCED.-The unsettled state of affairs interrupted the war in Africa twenty years; but in 692, Hassan, governor of Egypt, commenced a series of expeditions, which reduced the whole northern coast; and about the end of the century, the fearless Akbah spurred his horse into the waves of the Atlantic, sighing, like another Alexander, for new worlds to conquer. Carthage fell in 698, and Africa was irrecoverably lost to the Greek empire; but the wandering tribes of Barbary did not submit so easily to a new government which threatened their independence. Their Queen Kahina forced Hassan to retire; nor was it till the death of this heroine that any advantage was gained by the Arabian forces. Musa completed the conquest of this part of Africa; and by degrees the inhabitants, deserting Christianity, embraced the religion of a people who, by their similarity of manners, encouraged the belief of a common origin.

ITALY.

From A. D. 568, the peninsula was divided between the Lombard kingdom and the exarchate of Ravenna, which still acknowledged the authority of the Byzantine emperors.* The Lombard sovereigns were virtuous and able; peace and happiness adorned their government; and Italy began to recover from the devastations of the two preceding centuries. A brief period of discord led to the accession, in 636, of Rotharis, duke of Brescia, who signalized his reign by his conquests and his code of laws. The prudence of this king was shown in his respect to religious affairs; the Arianism which he professed not making him unjust to his orthodox subjects. After his death in 652, the Lombard monarchy was agitated by ambitious dukes who coveted or usurped

*The exarchate, properly so called, contained the cities of Ravenna, Bologna, Imola, Faenza, Ferrara, Adria, Commachio, and Forli, with the Pentapolis, or that territory which included Ancona, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, and Sinigaglia. It was governed by an exarch invested with civil and military authority; under him various dukes ruled in Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Syracuse, and other great cities of the Peninsula, Dalmatia, and the Italian Islands. This state of affairs continued until the first half of the eighth century, when the quarrel between the iconoclasts and the ambition of Astolphus wrought important changes in the condition of Italy.

the crown, and threatened by the Emperor Constans II., who wished to re-establish the seat of empire in Italy.

DOGE OF VENICE.-About A. D. 697, the inhabitants of the Adriatic isles assembled at Heraclea, and elected Paulo Anafesto duke, with the insignia of royalty, without however rejecting the supremacy of Constantinople. By subsequent limitations, the power of the doge was reduced within very narrow bounds, and his office became a sort of ducal mayoralty for life. In authority he was merely a counsellor; in the city, a prisoner of state, and out of it, only a private person. The great council of 480 citizens was principally composed of men of high birth, and invested with the appointment of their head and all the inferior magistracies. The senate consisted of the sixty Pregadi, the forty judges, the college of Savii, the council of ten, and formed an intermediate body between the nobles and the executive. They imposed taxes, and declared war or concluded peace. The three state inquisitors were superior to all the citizens, not excepting even the doge. Criminal justice was administered by a tribunal of forty, annually chosen from the great assembly. By the laws of 1296 (the Serratura del Consiglio), 1298, and 1300, all those who had not been in the great council within the four preceding years, were for ever debarred from election to that assembly, thus establishing an exclusive hereditary aristocracy. Much discontent was manifested at these proceedings, and several insurrections took place with the object of framing a more popular form of government. Such is a meagre outline of an avowed aristocracy which governed larger territories and endured a longer period than any other upon record. Already at this early period Venice had its fleets, and these she placed at the service of the Exarch Eutychius, to aid in driving the Lombards from their more recent conquests, by which they became unwelcome neighbours both to the republic and to Rome.

Read; Spalding's Italy and the Italian Islands, 3 vols., in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library.

FRANCE.

CLOTAIRE II., A. D. 613.-The disputed succession of Alsace led to a civil war between Thierry and Theodebert, in which the latter, after having been defeated at Tolbiac in 612, was decapitated by order of his brother, by whom he was followed to the grave in the subsequent year. Brunehaut, seconded by the patrician Protadius, vainly endeavoured to maintain one of the sons of Thierry on the throne; for Clotaire gained the ascendency, and won over the Ostrasian leudes, whom the queen had exasperated by her violent opposition to their claims. This aged female was surrendered to the mercy of the son of Fredegunde, and by him put to death with barbarous cruelty. In 613, Clotaire re-united the different members of the monarchy, and by an edict issued from the national assembly held at Paris, he reformed the kingdom, and gave securities for the public peace, which was not again broken during his reign.

MAYORS OF THE PALACE.-The mayor of the palace (major domus) was originally what his title signified the chief of the king's domestics. Under princes of unripe years or feeble character, he easily usurped all the powers of the state. Warnachaire in Burgundy and Radon in Os

trasia had been declared immovable by Clotaire, with the consent of the nobles, who had long had a voice in the nomination of these ministers, and who appear finally to have had the exclusive power of election. It was not until after the time of Dagobert I, that the govern ment passed entirely into the hands of the mayors.

DAGOBERT.-Clotaire II. died in 628, and was succeeded by Dagobert, his son, who had been six years king of Ostrasia. He conferred Aquitaine on his brother Caribert, who reigned three years at Toulouse, and died not long afterwards, when his eldest son was recognised as king. Dagobert, however, caused him to be poisoned, and gave Aquitaine as an hereditary duchy, to another of his nephews, who became the founder of a long line of princes, which terminated, in 1503, in the person of Louis of Armagnac, duke of Nemours, killed at the battle of Cerignole.

The reign of Dagobert offers no remarkable event, except the invasion of Ostrasia by a Sclavonic tribe, who had elected to the kingly station a Frank merchant named Samon. Some time after, Judicaël, duke of Bretagne, whose subjects committed incessant ravages on Western France, came to Clichy soliciting the alliance of the Frank monarch. Dagobert expired in 638, after a reign of some splendour, the honour of which belongs not so much to the sovereign as to the mayors Arnulph, Pepin of Landen, Ega, and to the goldsmith Saint Eloi, who administered the king's finances and presided over the magnificence of the court.

SLUGGARD KINGS.*-With Siegbert II. and Clovis II., respectively monarchs of Ostrasia and Neustria, begins the list of Sluggard Kingsfor by that name were the ten feeble successors of Dagobert I. characterized. Forty years after, the right of succession called Thierry III. to the united throne of the triple kingdom, 678; when the Ostrasian nobles, indignant at the favour shown to their enemy, the mayor Ebroin, abolished the royal title, and chose their dukes in the persons of Pepin d'Heristal and Martin the grandson of Saint Arnulph. Hostilities ensued with the mayor of Thierry III., in which Martin perished. Pepin, thus left sole duke, became bolder in his designs, and attacking Neustria, ended the war in 687 by the victory of Testry, which placed the chief portion of Western France in his hands.

Pepin d'Heristal, now become absolute master in the two kingdoms, strengthened his power by the defeat of the tributaries who had assumed independence during the Frank dissensions. Three times he disposed of the Nuestrian crown, and dying, bequeathed the mayoralty to his grandson Theodobald and his widow Plectrude, passing over his illegitimate son Charles, 715.

* Michelet remarks of these latter Merovingian kings, that they appear to be a parti cular race of men; they were all parents at fifteen, and old men at thirty. Few of them attained the latter age: Caribert II. died at the age of twenty-five years; Sigebert II. at twenty-six; Clovis II. at twenty-three; Childeric II. at twenty-four; Clotaire III. at eighteen; Dagobert II. at twenty-seven, &c,-Hist. de France, tome i. p. 280.

SPAIN.

The two successors of Recardede, Liuva II. and Vitteric, died by assassination. Gondemar gained a few advantages over the Greeks, who were driven out of Spain by Sisebert, 612-620. This prince, celebrated for the composition of a not inelegant Latin poem on the eclipses of the sun and moon, conquered Tangier and Ceuta, as well as part of Mauritania. His son Recardede II. died shortly after his coronation; and his second son Suintilla, was nominated his successor by the bishops; but was overthrown by Sisenand, governor of Septimania, 631. Under this ruler, the fourth council of Toledo declared that no one could ascend the throne without the consent of the prelates and the chief officers of state; that the king should take oath not to pronounce any judgment on capital matters without the advice of his court; that the bishops might summon to the councils, or exclude from them, any persons whatever; and that, finally, the ecclesiastics should be exempt from charges and taxation. Thus was Spain placed under the control of a sacerdotal aristocracy.

Chintilla, A. D. 636, expelled the Jews from Spain, in obedience to the orders of the sixth council of Toledo, which further decreed that no election of a successor should take place during the life of the reigning king. Tulga, deposed by the nobles, left his crown to Chindasvind, who associated his son Recesvind with him on the throne. The latter still further augmented the power of the bishops, repelled an invasion of the Gascons, and defended Mauritania against the first attacks of the Arabians. His successor Wamba, 672, had to check the numerous revolts which broke out on every side, and was at length deposed after several successful campaigns against the Mussulmans. The noble Erwiga, instigated by the Archbishop of Toledo, mixed opium in his wine, cut off his hair during sleep, and took away the silver keys, the ensigns of royalty. On his awaking, the sovereign not unwillingly resigned a throne which he had accepted only on compulsion.

The new king Erwiga was compelled to reward the services of the head of the Spanish church by new concessions, and by the privilege of nominating to the vacant sees. By this act the crown lost almost the only useful prerogative which remained, for the great civil and military dignities having become hereditary, the king had no other means of opposing the nobles than by filling the bishoprics with trusty men. Under Egiza, 687, the Jews formed secret relations with their African brethren, in the hope of receiving protection and aid from the Saracens. The plot having been discovered, the exercise of the Jewish worship was forbidden; children of seven years old and under were taken from their parents to be educated as Christians; and all who apostatized were deprived of their wealth and liberty. This reign was disturbed by the claims of the Archbishops of Toledo, who were desirous of conducting the affairs of the kingdom by a regency. Witizen beheld the increase of the factions, to which he himself became a victim, 710: being dethroned by Roderick, the son of a nobleman whose eyes he had ordered to be torn out.

THE CHURCH.

The true doctrines of Christianity were fast becoming obscured in the East, from the ambition of the patriarchs and the subtle spirit of the