appealing, as they did, from the Council of _Rome_, at which _Melchiades_ assisted, and probably presided, as Bishop of the Imperial City[556]. [Sidenote: _Whether the_ Lateran _Palace was given by_ Constantine _to_ Melchiades.] _Baronius_, impatient to see the Pope raised to the Rank of a Prince, endeavours to prove, that _Melchiades_ was placed in that Station by _Constantine_, and argues thus: The Council of _Rome_ was held in the _Lateran_ Palace; therefore that Palace had been given by _Constantine_ to _Melchiades_, and belonged to him; for that an Assembly of Nineteen Bishops only should meet in so spacious a Place, can no otherwise be accounted for, but by supposing the Pope to have resided there. This he calls a Demonstration[557]. Having thus got him a Palace, and, no doubt, magnificently furnished, he finds no Difficulty in equipping him in every other respect as a Prince: For who can imagine, says he, that _Constantine_, so pious, so generous a Prince, would have given to the Head of the Church a Royal Palace to live in, and not allow him at the same time a suitable Retinue, with suitable Appointments? To act otherwise, had not been honouring, but disgracing the Christian Religion, since its High Pontiff, stalking about all alone in a huge Palace, could be but an Object of Ridicule to the Pontiffs of the Pagan Superstition, who lived in magnificent Houses, with answerable Grandeur[558]. Thus is the Bishop metamorphosed at once into a Sovereign. But the Metamorphosis is somewhat premature. If _Constantine_, yet a _Neophyte_, was not well acquainted with the true Spirit of the Christian Religion, _Melchiades_ was; and therefore, had that Prince offered to distinguish him by any such Marks of worldly Grandeur, I do not question but, as he was a very good Man, he would have taken from thence an Opportunity of instructing him better in the Principles of his new Profession, and shewing him in what Contempt the Christian Prelates had, and he himself ought to have, all worldly Grandeur. But no such Offer was ever made or dreamt of: For what at length is all this founded on? On the Meeting of the Council in the _Lateran_ Palace. The _French_ Academy meet in the _Louvre_: Are they therefore Princes? And does not _Optatus_, of whom we have the whole Account, call it in express Terms the House of _Fausta_[559]? _Fausta_ perhaps lived there, says _Baronius_, during the long and flourishing Reign of her Father _Maximian_, and thence it might be called the House of _Fausta_. Thus in the End is his Demonstration dwindled away to a mere Conjecture, and a very groundless one too: But, waving that, why might not _Fausta_ continue in the same Palace after her Father’s Death, with her Husband _Constantine_, when he was at _Rome_, or alone, when she did not attend him in the Wars? The Annalist seems to have forgot that _Fausta_ was _Constantine_’s Wife. But after all, the Empress, as it appears to me, had only an Apartment in the _Lateran_; for in this