native India, to figure in the peacock-throne of the Great Mogul, and
be bought at last by some Armenian for a few rupees from an English
soldier, and come hither--and whither next? When England shall be
what Alexandria and Rome are now, that little stone will be as bright
as ever.--An awful symbol, if you will take it so, of the permanence
of God's works and God's laws, amid the wild chance and change of
sinful man.

Then followed for Rome years of peace,--such peace as the wicked make
for themselves--A troubled sea, casting up mire and dirt. Wicked
women, wicked counts (mayors of the palace, one may call them) like
Aetius and Boniface, the real rulers of a nominal Empire.

Puppet Valentinian succeeded his father, puppet Honorius. In his
days appeared another great portent--another comet, sweeping down out
of infinite space, and back into infinite space again.--Attila and
his Huns. They lay in innumerable hordes upon the Danube, until
Honoria, Valentinian's sister, confined in a convent at
Constantinople for some profligacy, sent her ring to Attila. He must
be her champion, and deliver her. He paused a while, like Alaric
before him, doubting whether to dash on Constantinople or Rome, and
at last decided for Rome. But he would try Gaul first; and into Gaul
he poured, with all his Tartar hordes, and with them all the Teuton
tribes, who had gathered in his progress, as an avalanche gathers the
snow in its course. At the great battle of Chalons, in the year 451,
he fought it out: Hun, Sclav, Tartar, and Finn, backed by Teutonic
Gepid and Herule, Turkling, East Goth and Lombard, against Roman and
West Goth, Frank and Burgund, and the Bretons of Armorica. Wicked
Aetius shewed himself that day, as always, a general and a hero--the
Marlborough of his time--and conquered. Attila and his hordes rolled