given him a dram. When, however at last the war was protracted, and the famine in Alesia had risen to the highest, so that the troops of the Gauls became discontented and deserted; Vercingetorix had the nobleness of mind to stand forth in the city, and say, “that they should yield him up on condition that their lives were spared.” This stamps him as one of the greatest men of antiquity. He went and gave himself up to Cæsar, who again behaved vilely. Though Cæsar ought to have been more than a common Roman, and to have treated him generously, sending him to a _libera custodia_; he bound him in chains, kept him for his triumph, and then had him put to death. This is one of those stains from which indeed Cæsar is not free. After this, there were still some smaller insurrections. There was a rising of the Belgians, but the time for it was past; and moreover there was one of the Bellovaci, in the neighbourhood of Beauvais and Chartres: yet it was now very easy for Cæsar to conquer them. We see clearly that it was the will of Providence to make the Roman Empire great, and to gather all the nations then known under its sway. Had Vercingetorix, who could not have been unacquainted with the state of affairs at Rome, kept back the outbreak in Gaul for a couple of years, until the heartburnings between Cæsar and Pompey had brought on the civil war, Gaul might perhaps have recovered her freedom. CIVIL WAR BETWEEN CÆSAR AND POMPEY. The way in which Cæsar was situated with regard to the republic at the end of his time in Gaul, was indeed so unhappy, that it was not in the power of man to bring matters to a good and joyful issue. If it was difficult even for Scipio, after his victory, to live as a citizen, and he did not quite know how to conduct himself; how much more for a man who, for nearly ten years, had been used to rule over vast tracts of country with the absolute power of a prince. Such a habit is hard to get rid of, as we may perceive in the less important things of our every-day life, wherein the change from one situation to another is often fraught with endless difficulties. All that Cæsar could have got lawfully, was a second consulship: this, however, as affairs then stood, was nothing but an empty honour; for what could he have done with himself and with the republic? He could indeed have only employed his great intellectual faculties by devoting himself in utter retirement to study. He had not been in Rome for ten years; and all that he heard from thence from those who came to him, was hateful to him, and showed him the government in a contemptible light. To live on a footing of equality with inferior, and some of them bad men, was what he could not think of without disgust. Matters therefore were in such confusion, that they could not possibly have righted. His opponents, instead of taking steps towards reconciliation, showed, on the contrary, symptoms which must have vexed him to the utmost. M.