The injury which Maximus had received from the emperor Valentinian appears to excuse the most bloody revenge. Yet a philosopher might have reflected that, if the resistance of his wife had been sincere, her chastity was still inviolate, and that it could never be restored if she had consented to the will of the adulterer. A patriot would have hesitated before he plunged himself and his country into the inevitable calamities which must follow the extinction of the royal house of Theodosius. The imprudent Maximus disregarded these salutary considerations; he gratified his resentment and ambition; he saw the bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet, and heard himself saluted emperor by the unanimous voice of the senate and the people. But the day of his inauguration was the last day of his happiness. He was imprisoned in the palace; and after passing a sleepless night, he sighed that he had attained the summit of his wishes, and aspired only to descend from the dangerous elevation. The reign of Maximus continued about three months. Meanwhile his wife, the cause of these tragic events, had been seasonably removed by death; and the widow of Valentinian was compelled to violate her decent mourning, perhaps her real grief, and to submit to the embraces of a presumptuous usurper, whom she suspected as the assassin of her deceased husband. THE LADY ROWENA. [450.] VERSTEGAN. With this troop of German people, there came over to England [400-500] the most fair Lady Rowena, whom some Saxon authors call Ronixa, who, as our chronicles say, was the daughter of Hengist; but I find in some of that country-writers, from whence she came, that she was his niece, which is the likelier of both, considering that Hengist is not likely at that time to have been old enough to have had such a daughter, and that he was as young, when he came into Britain, as before has been said, may appear by the many years which he lived after his coming hither.