the Gothic nation was in arms."*" The barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued from their forests; and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the poet to remark, that they rolled their ponderous waggons over the broad and icy bank of the indignant river."+

In the year 396, Alaric, the leader, and subsequently the king of the Visigoths, marched into and ravaged Greece. The fertile fields of Phocis and Bæotia were covered by a deluge of "barbarians, who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle of the flaming villages."-"The whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted with the baneful presence of the barbarians; and, if we may use the comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim."-" Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the

In interpreting the trumpets which are next in order, viz., the second and third, I simply follow the order of history, and this I conceive to be the best answer to the objections of a Reviewer in the Investigator, Vol. I. p. 309, that Alaric and other barbarian leaders were equally stars with Attila. Why, the Spirit of God signifies the invasion of one barbarous king by the symbol of a mountain, and another by that of a star, it is not easy to say, but the order of the trumpets necessarily leads us to apply the mountain of the second trumpet to Alaric, because he preceded Attila in time. This remark I deem quite sufficient on this point.

* Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xxx. + Gibbon, chap. xxx.

arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved by death from beholding the slavery of their families, and the conflagration of their cities."*

Italy was invaded by Alaric in the year 400, and in the year 406 by a mixed army of Vandals, Suevi, and Burgundians, under the command of Radagaisus; and though both these armies of invaders were defeated by Stilicho, the master-general of the west, Italy and the capital of the empire had but a short respite. In 408, Alaric entered Italy a second time, and besieged Rome, which was reduced to the last extremity by the ravages of famine and plague. The imperial city was at this time spared by the barbarian conqueror for the payment of a large ransom. It was besieged a second time. in the following year, and in the year 410, the Goths, a third time, appeared before the gates of Rome, which they took and sacked. After enriching his army with the plunder of the capital of the empire, Alaric marched into the southern provinces of Italy, which remained in possession of the Goths till the year 414, when a treaty was concluded with Adolphus, the successor of Alaric, in consequence of which he evacuated Italy, and marched into Gaul.t

In the year 406, the province of Gaul was invaded by the remains of the great army of Radagaisus. After defeating the Franks, who opposed their progress, "the victorious confederates pursued their march; and, on the last day of the year,

Gibbon, chap. xxx. + Ibid. chap. xxxi. ‡ Ibid. chap. xxx.

in a season of the year when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered without opposition the defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground."-"The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tiber, with elegant houses and well-cultivated farms. This scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of man.'

Having spread the dreadful ravages of war throughout the greatest part of the provinces of Gaul, the same horde of barbarians entered Spain in the year 409. "The eruption of these nations was followed by the most dreadful calamities." -"The progress of famine reduced the miserable inhabitants to feed on the flesh of their fellowcreatures; and even the wild beasts, which multiplied without control in the desert, were exasperated, by the taste of blood, and the impatience of hunger, boldly to attack and devour their human prey. Pestilence soon appeared, the inseparable companion of famine: a large proportion of the people was swept away; and the groans of the

* Gibbon, chap. xxx.

F

dying excited only the envy of their surviving friends. At length the barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and afflicted by the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced, fixed their permanent seats in the depopulated country."

In the year 429, the Vandals under the command of Genseric, passed from Spain into Africa, and established themselves in that province: and the Roman empire in that quarter was entirely subverted by them about eleven years afterwards, when they obtained possession of the city of Carthage.

The second period of the Gothic irruptions, which began in A. D., 395, seems to me to have been the fulfilment of the second trumpet, on the sounding of which "a great mountain burning "with fire, was cast into the sea."

A mountain in the prophetical style, signifies a kingdom. It is well known that the irruption of the northern nations into the Roman empire was of this peculiar nature, that not bodies of armed men only, but whole nations of invaders, transported themselves, with their women and children, their goods and effects, into the territories of the empire. Such an invasion, by various tribes of fierce and impetuous barbarians, who carried fire and sword wherever they marched, seems to be fitly symbolized by a vast mountain, burning with fire, being cast into the sea.

The third period of the irruptions of the northern nations into the Roman empire, appears to have commenced in the year 441, when the Huns under

Mariana quoted by Gibbon, chap. xxxi.

Attila, invaded the eastern empire. "The whole breadth of Europe, as it extends about five hundred miles from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was at once invaded, and occupied, and desolated, by the myriads of barbarians whom Attila led into the field.""The armies of the eastern empire were vanquished in three successive engagements; and the progress of Attila may be traced by the fields of battle. The two former, on the banks of the Utus, and under the walls of Marcianopolis, were fought in the extensive plains between the Danube and Mount Hæmus. As the Romans were pressed by a victorious enemy, they gradually and unskilfully retired towards the Chersonesus of Thrace; and that narrow peninsula, the last extremity of the land, was marked by their third and irreparable defeat. By the destruction of this army, Attila acquired the indisputable possession of the field. From the Hellespont to Thermopylæ, and the suburbs of Constantinople, he ravaged without resistance and without mercy the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia. Heraclea and Hadrianople might perhaps escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns; but the words the most expressive of total extirpation and erasure, are applied to the calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the eastern empire."

In the year 450, Attila invaded Gaul, and ravaged it with fire and sword; but in the following year he was defeated with prodigious slaughter at the battle of Chalons. In the year 452, he entered

* Gibbon, chap. xxxiv.