all nominal, some objector will cry; an advance, not of Rome, but of Germany, an advance, not of the Roman Augustus, but of the Frankish king. And truly the Empire of Charles, much more the Empire of the Henries and Fredericks, was unreal in this, that it was assuredly a very different thing from the Empire of Trajan or of Diocletian. It was assuredly not Roman in the sense in which the Empire even of Theodosius was Roman. But here lies the greatest proof of the influence of Rome, of her magic power over the minds of men, that a power which had practically ceased to be Roman, should still be Roman in men’s eyes, and, as Roman, should command a reverence, a devotion, a bowing down as it were of the whole soul, which could be called forth by no other name. A name may have lost its first meaning; but, as long as men will fight and die for the name, the name is a fact indeed. The act of 800, it must always be borne in mind, was in one sense the repetition, in another sense the undoing, of the act of 476; but it was in no case the revival of the line of Emperors which came to an end in 476. Charles, Emperor of the Romans, was not the successor after a long interval either of Romulus Augustulus or of Julius Nepos; he was the immediate successor of Constantine the Sixth. The Emperors had lost all practical authority in Rome earlier in the century; their power had passed to the Frank. Charles Augustus received no powers which he had not already exercised as Patrician; only hitherto the titles of sovereignty had been left to the Emperor beyond the sea. The name now went with the reality; the titles and badges of Empire were transferred to the new Emperor reigning at Rome, at least crowned and anointed at Rome. There was no need to depose any reigning sovereign. Rome had acknowledged Constantine; she refused to acknowledge Eirênê; the Empire could not be held by a woman, least of all by a woman who had deposed and blinded her own son. There was again an interregnum, such as had followed the death of Romulus and the death of Aurelian; that interregnum was ended by the election of Charles. In Western theory no doubt, Charles himself, and each of his successors, was elected to the sovereignty of the whole Empire; he was to reign, if he could, over the New Rome as well as over the Old. In Eastern theory no doubt the election and coronation were null and void; the Emperor anointed in Saint Sophia had a right which none could take away to reign over the Old Rome as well as over the New. Each Emperor in short asserted himself to be the one true Emperor and the other to be an impostor or a tyrant. The dispute was for some centuries stirred up afresh from time to time at some moment favourable for its discussion. To men zealous for Eastern rights the Western claimant was a mere Ἀλαμανῶν ῥήξ; to men zealous for Western rights the Eastern claimant was nothing loftier than “Rex Græciæ.” The most curious piece of discussion on the subject