[np] _Alas, for Tully's voice, and Titus' sway_ _And Virgil's verse; the first and last must be_ _Her Resurrection_----.--[MS. M.] [464] Certainly, were it not for these two traits in the life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should regard him as a monster unredeemed by any admirable quality. The _atonement_ of his voluntary resignation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who if they had not respected must have destroyed him. There could be no mean, no division of opinion; they must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and that what had been mistaken for pride was a real grandeur of soul.--("Seigneur, vous changez toutes mes idées, de la façon dont je vous vois agir. Je croyois que vous aviez de l'ambition, mais aucun amour pour la gloire; je voyois bien que votre âme étoit haute; mais je ne soupçonnois pas qu'elle fut grande."--_Dialogue de Sylla et d'Eucrate_.) _Considérations ... de la Grandeur des Romains, etc._, Paris, 1795, ii. 219. By Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. [Stanza lxxxiii. indicates the following events in the life of Sulla. In B.C. 81 he assumed the name of Felix (or, according to Plutarch, Epaphroditus, Plut, _Vitæ_, 1812, iv. 287), (line 1). Five years before this, B.C. 86, during the consulship of Marius and Cinna, his party had been overthrown, and his regulations annulled; but he declined to return to Italy until he had brought the war against Mithridates to a successful conclusion, B.C. 83 (lines 3-6). In B.C. 81 he was appointed dictator (line 7), and B.C. 79 he resigned his dictatorship and retired into private life (line 9).] [nq] {394} ----_how supine_ _Into such dust deserted Rome should fade,_ or, _In self-woven sackcloth Rome should thus be laid_.--[MS. M. erased.] [nr] _The Earth beneath her shadow and displayed_ _Her wings as with the horizon and was hailed,_ or, _The rushings of his wings and was Almighty hailed_.--[MS. M. erased.] [ns] _Sylla supreme of Victors--save our own_ _The ablest of Usurpers--Cromwell--he_ _Who swept off Senates--while he hewed the Throne_ _Down to a block--immortal Villain! See_ _What crimes, etc_.--[MS. M.] [465] On the 3rd of September Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar [1650]; a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester [1651]; and a few years after [1658], on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died. [466] {395} [The statue of Pompey in the Sala dell' Udinanza of the Palazzo Spada is no doubt a portrait, and belongs to the close of the Republican period. It cannot, however, with any certainty be identified with the statue in the Curia, at whose base "great Cæsar fell." (See _Antike Bildwerke in Rom._, F. Matz, F. von Duhn, i. 309.)]