[25] We have already said that Heraclius, who and whose family filled the throne of Eastern Caesar for exactly one hundred years (611-711), consequently interesting in this way (if in no other), that he, as the reader will see by considering the limits in point of time, must have met and exhausted the first rage of the Mahometan _avalanche_, merits according to our estimate the title of first and noblest amongst the Oriental Caesars. There are records or traditions of his earliest acts that we could wish otherwise. Which of us would _not_ offend even at this day, if called upon to act under one scale of sympathies, and to be judged under another? In his own day, too painfully we say it, Heraclius could not have followed what we venture to believe the suggestions of his heart, in relation to his predecessor, because a policy had been established which made it dangerous to be merciful, and a state of public feeling which made it effeminate to pardon. First make it safe to permit a man's life, before you pronounce it ignoble to authorize his death. Strip mercy of ruin to its author, before you affirm upon a judicial punishment of death (as then it was) cruelty in the adviser or ignobility in the approver. Escaping from these painful scenes at the threshold of his public life, we find Heraclius preparing for a war, the most difficult that in any age any hero has confronted. We call him the earliest of Crusaders, because he first and _literally_ fought for the recovery of the Cross. We call him the most prosperous of Crusaders, because he first--he last--succeeded in all that he sought, bringing back to Syria (ultimately to Constantinople) that sublime symbol of victorious Christianity which had been disgracefully lost at Jerusalem. Yet why, when comparing him not with Crusaders, but with Caesars, do we pronounce him the noblest? Reader, which is it that is felt by a thoughtful man--supposing him called upon to select one act by preference before all others--to be the grandest act of our own Wellesley? Is it not the sagacious preparation of the lines at Torres Vedras, the self-mastery which lured the French on to their ruin, the long-suffering policy which reined up his troops till that ruin was accomplished? '_I bide my time_,' was the dreadful watchword of Wellington through that great drama; in which, let us tell the French critics on Tragedy, they will find _the most_ absolute unity of plot; for the forming of the lines as the fatal noose, the wiling back the enemy, the pursuit when the work of disorganization was perfect, all were parts of one and the same drama. If he (as another Scipio) saw another Zama, in this instance he was not our Scipio or Marcellus, but our Fabius Maximus: 'Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.'--'Ann.' 8, 27.