pears, that I am guilty of no inconsistency in supposing, that Charlemagne, in his two different capacities of king of France and Emperor of the Romans, may be considered as being at once both a horn and a head of the beast.

2. The second objection, that the Emperor can no more be esteemed the last head of the secular beast than the Pope, because his temporal supremacy is no more allowed than that of the Pope, will speedily vanish, if we consider the nature of symbolical prophecy, and the history of the first rise of the Carlovingian empire. Now it is manifest, that in a prophecy symbolically delivered the symbols themselves cannot be represented as perpetually varying with the ever-varying revolutions of nations. The great outlines of facts, whether past, present, or future, must alone be attended to: and the different members of a symbolical beast must unavoidably be exhibited as stationary and permanent, when in reality they are by no means so. St. John

But should he at some

only one of the ten horns of the beast. future period be allowed by Providence to tread in the steps of Charlemagne, to subvert the imperial honours of Germany, and to re-annex to France the title and authority of Emperor of the Romans: in that case he would doubtless become the septimo-octave head; in that case the imperial dignity would only revert to France, as it was before transferred from France to Germany: it would still be the same last head of the beast. How far such an event is probable, the reader must judge for himself, when more is said hereafter upon the subject of yet unfulfilled prophecies.

Since this was written, the usurper has been permitted to tread in the steps of Charlemagne, and to erect again the empire of the West. His governnient now plainly the representative of the Carlovingian head of the beast. June 1. 1806,

John himself gives us a clue to the right interpretation of his own prophecy. "Five of the heads," says he," are fallen, and one is, and the other is "not yet come:" nevertheless the beast still appears with all his seven heads, notwithstanding, when he arose out of the sea of Gothic invasion, five of them were no longer in existence, and one of them was as yet future. In a similar manner the sixth head, which at its first rise reigned paramount, like each of its five predecessors, over the whole beast, is still, no less than when it first arose, considered as the sixth head, even when its empire was overrun by the barbarians of the North and the Saracens of the South, when its fairest provinces were rent away from it, and when many independent kingdoms were erected which acknowledged not its supremacy. If then the sixth head be esteemed a head, from its first rise to its final dissolution, when cooped up by the Turks within the narrow limits of a single city; we must evidently adopt the same mode of considering the last head: that is to say, it will matter little, so far as the completion of the prophecy is concerned, whether the temporal supremacy of the present representative of the last head be acknowledged or not, provided only it was once acknowledged. We have merely therefore to inquire, whether this was ever the case with the Carlovingian monarchy; for such acknowledgment seems necessary, in the mind of the prophet, to complete the character of a head of the beast.

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He is silent respecting the first six heads, because they all arose before the empire was broken, and therefore it was unnecessary to specify that they were severally the whole beast: but he particularly informs us, that the last should likewise be the whole beast, because such a circumstance, however essential to the character of a head, seemed very improbable after the empire had been divided into ten horns*. This however precisely came to pass. Allowing for the space occupied by the yet existing sixth head, the last head at its first rise was commensurate, either by actual sovereignty or acknowledged supremacy, with the whole, beast. Charlemagne really possessed what the Popes only ineffectually claimed. The greatest part of the Western Empire was immediately subject to him: he possessed ample territories without its limits: and the petty kings of Britain and Spain, the only provinces not directly under his controul, implored the honour and support of his alliance, and styled him their common parent, the sole and supreme Emperor of the Westt. The result therefore of

the

"The beast, that was, and is not, even he is the eighth "(king or head), and is of the seven."

The reader will find a statement of the extent of the Carlovingian empire, in the Hist. of the Decline and Fall, vol. ix. p. 180-187; which affords the best comment upon the prophetic declaration that the last head should be the whole beast. Respecting Charlemagne and his empire Mr. Gibbon justly remarks, that "the dignity of his person, the length of his reign, "the prosperity of his arms, the vigour of his government, 17

" and

the whole is this. If the successors of Augustus are still considered as the sixth head of the beast, even when they no longer possessed the temporal supremacy of Augustus; no reason can be shewn, why the successors of Charlemagne should not still be considered as the last head of the beast, although they now no longer possess the temporal supremacy of Charlemagnet.

3. With

"and the reverence of distant nations, distinguish him from "the royal crowd; and Europe dates a new era from the "restoration of the Western empire." The very pagans indeed, as Cardinal Baronius observes, mourned for Charlemagne as the father of the world: " ipsos paganos eum planxisse "quasi patrem orbis." Annal. Eccles. A.D. 814.

Since this was written the Carlovingian emperorship of the West has been transferred to France, and the real temporal supremacy of Charlemagne has been revived. June 1, 1806.

And yet more lately the chief of the House of Austria has formally resigned the Carlovingian emperorship; the ancient Germanic body has been dissolved; and a new feudal empire, comprehending nearly the whole of that country, has been formed subject to France. The present representative of Charlemagne, in short, reigns from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, and from the modern confines of Russia to the Atlantic, even where it washes the coasts of Portugal. Nov. 20. 1807.

+ The relics of that temporal supremacy, which constituted the Carlovingian line of emperors the last head of the beast, may be clearly traced in the famous Golden bull enacted under the Emperor Charles Iv. in the year 1356. In this bull each of the Electors is required to swear, that to the best of his discernment he will choose "a temporal chief for the Christian people" who may be worthy of that station: and it is afterwards ordered, that none of them shall quit the city of Frankfort,

3. With regard to the identity of the ancient Augustan imperial dignity and the modern Carlovingian imperial dignity, it exists but in imagination. The two resemble each other merely in name: in all other respects there is so great a difference between them, that they cannot with any propriety be considered as forming only one head. They differ in these respects.

The Augustan Emperorship was a single head, immediately succeeding the five which had fallen,. and seated during the latter part of its existence at Constantinople contemporaneously with the last head.

until they shall have, by a plurality of voices, elected and given to the world, or to the Christian people, a temporal chief, "namely a king of the Romans, future Emperor." With the same now empty affectation of the Carlovingian supremacy, the Archbishop of Cologne is styled Arch-chancellor of the Holy Empire in Italy; the Archbishop of Triers, Arch-chancellor of the Holy Empire in France and Arles; and the Archbishop of Mentz, Arch-chancellor of the Holy Empire in Germany. The whole of the Golden bull may be seen in Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. xxx. Bp. Newton indeed does not deny, that the Carlovingian Emperorship is a head of the beast; only he supposes it to be a continuation of the sixth head, instead of its being the distinct double last head. Such a scheme however appears to me extremely unnatural. When the sixth head was continued from the days of Constantine in the persons of the Constantinopolitan Emperors, and consequently when it was actually in existence at the time of the rise of the Carlovingian Emperorship, it seems very far fetched to say, that it was continued in the line of the Carlovingian Emperors, the very first of whom did not flourish till upwards of three centuries after the downfall of the old western empire under Augustulus.