Austria ABDICATED the title of Roman Emperor, by virtue of which it was a head of the Roman wild beast: Napoleon did not ASSUME that abdicated title therefore Napoleon did not BECOME that head of the Roman wild beast, of which Austria was previously the representative.

Such is the proof of one point: but this proof manifestly involves also the proof of the other.

For, if Austria CEASED to be a head of the Roman wild beast by abdicating the official title of Roman Emperor, and if neither Napoleon nor any other Roinan prince ASSUMED the abdicated title: then it is evident, that that head of the Roman wild beast, which Austria represented in regular succession from Charlemagne, CEASED ALTOGETHER TO EXIST or (as St. John speaks) IS FALLEN.

With this result corresponds the testimony of history, which occupies itself only in delivering naked facts.

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"In July 1806," says Mr. Butler, "most of the "princes in the western and southern divisions of Germany separated themselves from the Germanie body, and formed themselves into a league under the protection of the Emperor of the French, with "the title of the confederated states of the Rhine. "On the 7th of the following August, the Emperor "of Germany" resigned his official title of Emperor of the Romans; "abdicated, by a solemn edict, the

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Imperial government of the Germanic Empire; "and absolved the Electors, Princes and States, and all that belonged to the Empire, from the duties " by

"by which they were united to him as its legal chief. "Such has been THE EXTINCTION of the Germanic Empire, after having subsisted during a thousand years*.

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"

Having thus ascertained the point, that that head of the Roman wild beast, which Austria last represented in regular succession from Charlemagne, ceased or fell when the title of Roman Emperor was formally resigned; we have next to inquire into the prophetic character of the recently fallen head: that is to say, we have to inquire, with wHICH of the seven heads it ought to be identified; for, if it were a head of the Roman Empire, then it must plainly be identified with SOME ONE of the seven heads of that Empire.

I. Now, that it truly was A HEAD, is, I think, indisputable, both from its characteristic marks, and likewise from the very necessity of the thing.

1. With respect to its characteristic marks as recorded by history, the greatest part of the Western Empire was actually subject to it in the person of Charlemagne and the petty kings of Britain and Spain, the only Roman provinces not directly under the controul of that mighty sovereign, implored the honour and support of his alliance, and styled him their common parent THE SOLE AND SUPREME EMPEROR OF THE WEST t. The very pagans mourned

Butler's Revolutions of Germany. p. 208.

+ See a statement of the extent of the Carlovingian empire in Gibbon's Hist. of the Dec. vol. ix. p. 180–187.

for

for him, as THE FATHER OF THE WORLD*: the Ro man Empire was in him deemed to be translated from the East to the West, where (according to Cardinal Baronius) it has ever since remained t: and, by this revival of the Western Empire, "the Latin Chris"tians" (according to Mr. Gibbon) “were united "under A SUPREME HEAD."

His successors possessed not his power indeed, any more than the latter successors of Augustus in Rome or in Constantinople possessed the power of that prince: but, in the eye of prophecy, they were not the less on that account representatives of the Roman head which Charlemagne represented. Accordingly, from his time down to the very extinction of his sovereignty in the year 1806, the Emperor of the Romans, wherever he might hold his court, has always claimed and has always been allowed precedence over every one of the ten regal horns: and, as such, he has invariably been esteemed THE SECULAR HEAD of the great European commonwealth.

"Amongst those who are supreme," says Sir George Mackenzie, "kings have the preference from commonwealths: and, amongst kings, the Empe

ror is allowed the first place by the famous cere"monial of Rome, AS SUCCEEDING THE ROMAN

* "Ipsos paganos eum planxisse quasi patrem orbis." Baron. Annal. Eccles. in A. D. 814.

"Ejusmodi translatio imperii ab Oriente in Occidentem, "ubi posthac semper stetit et hactenus perseverat.” Annal. Eccles. in A.D. 800.

Hist. of Dec. vol. ix. p. 171.

EMPE

EMPERORS. Therefore the German and Italian lawyers, who are subject to the Empire, have with "much flattery asserted, that the Emperor is THE VICAR OF GOD IN TEMPORALS and that jurisdic"tions are derived from him as from the fountain, calling him THE LORD AND HEAD OF THE WHOLE 46 WORLD

With this claim, the phraseology of the famous Golden Bull, enacted under the Emperor Charles IV. in the year 1356, will be found perfectly to agree. In that instrument, 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 high station and it is afterwards ordered, that none of them shall quit the city of Frankfort, "until, by a "plurality of voices, they shall have elected and given to the world or to the Christian people a TEMPORAL CHIEF, namely a king of the Romans, "future Emperor †."

2. Thus manifestly, by its characteristic marks, is the recently extinct Carlovingian Emperorship determined to be A HEAD of the Roman wild beast: nor is the same position less established from the very necessity of the thing.

Since the Constantinopolitan Emperorship was

* Mackenzie's Observ. on Precedency. chap. i. in Guillim's Display of Heraldry. See also Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. xlii. p. 80-105.

+ The whole of the Golden Bull may be seen in Mod. Univ. Hist. vol. xxx.

doubtless

doubtless a branch of the sixth Roman head; and since the Papacy was never the temporal or secular head of the Roman Empire, on which account homogeneity (as I have already shewn at large) absolutely forbids us to identify it with any one of the seven Roman temporal heads: it will evidently follow from these premises, that, unless the Carlovingian Emperorship be A ROMAN HEAD, the hieroglyphical wild beast will have been headless from the extinction of the Constantinopolitan Emperorship in the year 1453 down even to the present time. But, in that case, the Roman wild beast will have lain dead during more than three centuries: for symbolical decorum, which is founded upon physical realities, forbids us to ascribe vitality to the hieroglyphical hydra when not a single one of his seven heads is in exist

ence.

Hence the very necessity of the thing requires us to find a temporal head for the wild beast during the period, which has elapsed since the year 1453: and for this head we shall vainly seek, unless we conclude it to be the Carlovingian Emperorship.

II. I have now therefore, both from its characteristic marks as recorded in history and from the very necessity of the case itself, established the important prophetic position, that the Carlovingian Emperorship was A HEAD of the Roman wild beast. Consequently, I must forthwith proceed to inquire, with WHICH of the seven heads this head must be identified. For, since it has been ascertained, that the Carlovingian Emperorship was A HEAD of the VOL. III. Roman

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