The eighth kingdom is that of the Herulo-Turingi, or the kingdom founded by the mingled troops of Odoacer. Some little time before the year 476, the confederates of Italy saluted their general Odoacer, the hereditary chieftain of the Scyrri, with the title of King: and, in the year 476 or 479, having abolished the Western Emperorship, that prince founded what we may denominate, for want of a more appropriate appellation, the first Gothic kingdom of Italy.

The ninth kingdom is that of the Ostrogoths or Gruthungi. In the year 489, their sovereign Theodoric, who had previously been in the service of the Eastern Emperor, undertook the conquest of Italy: and, in the year 493, was founded the Italian Ostrogothic monarchy.

The tenth kingdom is that of the Longobards or Lombards. In the year 526, Audoin crossed the Danube, and established the Lombards in Pannonia: in the year 563, Alboin assisted the Eastern Emperor against Totila, king of the Italian Ostrogoths and, in the years 567 and 568, the same prince, finally leading his people out of Pannonia, founded a kingdom in that part of Italy which has ever since borne the name of Lombardy1.

Thus we find, that the Western or proper Roman Empire, agreeably to the formation of the symbol which represents the entire Empire, was

1

My authorities for these various dates are those adduced by Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Gibbon. See Observ. on Dan. chap. vi, and Hist. of Decline vol. v, vi. 8vo. edit. 1806.

partitioned by exactly ten Gothic nations. The mingled Germans of Radigast, and the Huns of Attila, might and did harass the Western Empire: but these ten nations alone obtained permanent settlements, or became the founders of established kingdoms. Hence I suppose the ten primary kingdoms, which I have enumerated, to be the ten kingdoms symbolised by the ten horns of the fourth beast. Like the mingled toes of the great metallic image, some of them were strong, and others were weak. Some, therefore, have remained even to the present day; for they possessed the hardness and durability of the Roman iron and some, at a very early period, were ground by their more powerful neighbours to an impalpable powder; for they exhibited the weakness and brittleness of potters' clay. But, with the subsequent revolutions of the Western Empire, we have no concern: the ten PRIMARY kingdoms, founded by the ten distinct Gothic nations, are alone to be deemed the antitypes of the ten Roman horns'.

:

Some commentators, through despair of producing a satisfactory catalogue of ten kingdoms, have cut the Gordyan knot by a bold declaration, that the number ten must here be understood indefinitely, and that the prophecy announces nothing more than a division of the Roman Empire into many kingdoms. But the definiteness of the number ten is, I think, fully established, partly by the triple coincidence of the ten toes of the image, the ten horns of the beast, and the ten parts of the Babylonic city; partly by the definiteness of the number three, where it is declared that three out of the ten horns should be eradicated before the little horn; and partly by the circumstance,

2. Having now ascertained the ten large horns of the fourth great beast, I shall next endeavour to mark out the true character of that little persecuting horn, which the prophet beheld springing up as it were by stealth behind the ten larger horns.

(1.) On this subject, I agree in the general with Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Mede, and Bishop Newton: for, since history demonstrates that the ten horns sprang up in the fifth and sixth centuries, and since prophecy declares that the little horn was springing up synchronically with and in the midst of them (for, unless this had been the case, it could not have been concerned in the eradication of three of the primary horns); we are doubly compelled by two fatal notes, the one chronological and the other geographical, to identify the little horn with the Papacy1.

that every other number in the visions of Daniel is manifestly and confessedly definite, whence it were incongruous to make the number ten alone indefinite. If the four wings of the leopard, like the four horns of the he-goat in a subsequent vision, denote the precisely four Grecian kingdoms into which the Empire of Alexander was divided; the very principle of consistent interpretation is violated by supposing the ten horns of the Roman beast to denote, not precisely ten kingdoms, but indefinitely many kingdoms.

The modern popish expositor, Bishop Walmesley (who, under the assumed name of Signor Pastorini, published A general History of the Christian Church deduced from the Apocalypse), quitting the ground occupied by his more cautious predecessors, allows, that the ten horns of the Roman beast can only be the ten Gothic kingdoms, which sprang up in the fifth and sixth centuries when the Western Empire was partitioned:

(2.) Yet, while I thus agree with them in the general, that a persecuting Power, which is marked

yet, with singular inconsistency though for very obvious reasons, he stiffly contends, that the rise of the little horn is still future. Nothing, however, can be more evident, as the early Fathers of the Church clearly saw and maintained, than that both the little horn springs up synchronically with the ten horns, and that all these eleven horns arise geographically in one and the same region. In truth, unless this be admitted, the prophecy can never be accomplished. The little horn is to eradicate three out of the ten primary horns. But, of the ten primary horns (such have been the political revolutions of the West), only two are now in existence; the kingdom of the Franks, and the kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons: or, if we assent to the assertion of Mr. Gibbon, we shall even say, that the single kingdom of the Franks alone can boast an unbroken descent from the conquerors of the Roman Empire. It is, therefore, physically impossible, that any imagined yet future little horn can. accomplish the terms of the prophecy: for, if at the most only two of the ten primary horns are now in existence, it is quite clear that no future little horn can eradicate or subdue three of them. Hence, if the ten larger horns be the ten Gothic kingdoms; of which circumstance, Bishop Walmesley himself being judge, there can be no reasonable doubt: it will inevitably follow from such premises, both that the little horn was springing up synchronically with the ten primary large horns in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, and that the geographical stage of its growth was the Western Roman Empire. In short, if the rise of the little horn be still future; the rise of the ten horns, notwithstanding the Western Empire has already been partitioned by ten Gothic nations, must be future also: and, conversely, if the rise of the ten horns be long since past; the rise of the little horn must also be long since past.

This principle is so evident, that Jerome, who places the destruction of the Roman Empire and its partition by ten kings at

out chronologically as springing up almost unperceived in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, and which is determined geographically as rising within the limits of the Western Roman Empire, can only be the Papacy: I am unable entirely to assent to their precise mode of exposition. They suppose, that the little horn symbolises the tem

the end of the world, consistently ascribes to the same period the rise and exploits of the eleventh little horn.

Ergo dicamus, quod omnes scriptores ecclesiastici tradiderunt in consummatione mundi, quando regnum destruendum est Romanum, decem futuros reges qui orbem Romanum inter se dividant, et undecimum surrecturum esse regem parvulum, qui tres reges de decem regibus superaturus sit. Quibus interfectis, etiam septem alii reges victori colla submittent. Hieron. Comment. in loc. See also Iren. adv. Hær. lib. v. c. 21.

That the division of the Roman Empire by ten nations into ten primary kingdoms has long since occurred, not (as Jerome gratuitously imagined) at the end of the world, is now a matter of history. Such being the case, on that Father's very just principle of exposition, the rise of the little horn (let it symbolise what Power it may), its subversion of three out of the ten primary kingdoms, and the submission of all the remaining kingdoms to its extraordinary domination, must also have long since occurred.

On the whole, I see not how we can consistently deny the long since accomplished rise and the long since established do mination of the little horn, unless we be also prepared to deny the destruction and partition of the Western Empire, in the fifth and sixth centuries, by the ten victorious Gothic nations. We may explain the symbol of the little horn as we please: but, if the Western Empire has been partitioned, the Power represented by the little horn must have long since made its appear

ance.