vial cannot mean any one of the six first heads of the Roman beast, it can only mean the seventh head or the short-lived Francic Emperorship: and, accordingly, with that head it perfectly accords, both characteristically and chronologically.

As the natural sun appears to risé out of the ocean so did this allegorical sun of the Roman world rise out of that turbid sea of revolutionary bloodshed, which forms the subject of the second vial. Its influence, therefore, as might well be anticipated, was not benign and kindly. Instead of cherishing and fructifying its subject earth with a salutary and genial warmth, it scorched it with all the fury of an intolerable military despotism:: even as the literal sun parches the arid central. desert of the African continent. The Empire of Napoleon, himself the sole representative of the seventh Roman head, springing as it did out of the French Revolution, soon comprehended within its ample limits, either by direct or by feudal government, the whole Western Empire except the Kingdom of England. By military violence, the ancient Latin Empire was again united under a single real and effective head, which bore the completely new. official title of the Francic Emperorship: and, by military violence, all its inhabitants were still vehemently scorched under the rule of their arbitrary sovereign, in order that they might thus be made subservient to the promotion of his yet unaccomplished ambitious purposes. The arts of peace were disregarded and despised: the science,

of war alone was encouraged and cultivated. Every man, capable of bearing arms, was compelled to become a soldier: and the natives of each subjugated country were torn from the bosom of their families, and were tyrannically dragged into the field, that they might engage in quarrels wherein they had no interest, and that they might shed their blood for the mere purpose of aggrandising an unprincipled adventurer. Thus, for a considerable season, were the scorching rays of military despotism felt throughout France and Holland and Germany and Switzerland and Italy and Spain and Portugal: thus, to gratify the selfish ambition of a single cold-hearted individual, decorated with the new title of Emperor of the French and yet the sovereign of Rome and Italy, did the Western Roman Empire groan under the weight of endless requisitions and levies and conscriptions and extortions.

With respect to the chronological arrangement of the fourth vial, succeeding as it does the three first vials in point of commencement, it must also succeed the period allotted to Revolutionary France while in its democratic state : and, treating as it does of the history of the seventh Roman head, it cannot have begun to flow prior to the rise of that head. Hence, in stating the epoch when the seventh Roman head arose, we shall also state the epoch when the fourth vial began to be poured out. Now the rise of that head may be ascribed, either to the year 1802, or to the year 1804; according

as we are disposed to view the allegorical sun, struggling to emerge from the bed of the sea, or actually risen above its waves: the latter, however, ought most probably to be assumed as the true date, and consequently as the true date of the incipient effusion of the fourth vial.

It was on the 4th of August in the year 1802, that the modern sun of the Roman world began to rise dim and misty and obscure from the revolutionary sea of France: for then it was, that a fortunate military adventurer became the Lord of the Western Empire by receiving the investiture of the First-Consulship, not as a temporary office, but during the term of his natural life. By this political arrangement, he became a sovereign prince; the prince, too, of all the dominions annexed to the French Republic: but, as yet, he was a prince of a dubious and equivocal description. Monarchs, indeed, were perplexed with fear of change: yet the newly-risen sun of the Roman world looked for a season, shorn of his beams, through the misty horizontal air.

But, from this doubtful and hazy condition, the young luminary, as he rapidly mounted toward the zenith, soon and completely emerged. In the May of the year 1804, the ambiguous First-Consul was proclaimed Emperor of the French and the now fully developed Roman sun, being sprinkled with the dire contents of the fourth vial, blazed, with a scorching and ominous lustre, upon the parched and prostrate surface of the allegorical earth.

The men, who were thus scorched, we are told, blasphemed the name of God, and repented not to give him glory.

Accordingly, during the whole period of the sun's blazing influence, no signs of repentance could be observed to follow. The blasphemy or apostasy, both of Latin Demonolatry and of Atheistic Infidelity, still prevailed: and the men of the Roman world either laid to their souls the flattering unction of an unscriptural superstition, or stood up in open defiance against the Lord and against his Christ.

II. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the throne of the beast and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds'.

The fourth vial describes the rise and dominance of the Francic Emperorship: the fifth vial exhibits its downfall, and sets forth the consequences which result from that catastrophe.

1. In the poetical machinery, with which the prophet has decorated the oracle of the fifth vial, we cannot but observe a curious variation from that which was last employed, yet a variation replete with divine art and contrivance.

Under the influence of the fourth vial, the sun of the Roman world scorches the subject earth with

Rev. xvi. 10, 11.

an intolerahle fervour: under the influence of the fifth vial, the throne of the Roman beast is assailed, and his kingdom is filled with darkness. Two different sets of symbols, then, are used, in treating of the two successive portions of one remarkable period; the period, namely, which is allotted to Revolutionary France while imperial and yet they are so managed, that, while the beauty of picturesque variety is preserved, all the closeness of a strict connection is fully maintained. The beast, whose throne is attacked under the fifth vial, is obviously the secular beast or the temporal Roman Empire for it is to this beast alone, that a royal chair or throne is ascribed. But the chronological epoch, to which we have now been brought in regular succession, demonstrates, that the beast, here spoken of, must be the Roman beast under his seventh head or (in other words) the Roman Empire under the Francic Emperorship. Now we have seen, that to this Francic Emperorship alone the character of the scorching sun of the fourth vial can be deemed applicable: and we have afterward found, that, in consistence with the chronological chain of events, this same Francic Emperorship or the seventh head of the Roman beast can alone be the existing head of the beast at the time when his throne is exposed to the influence of the fifth vial. Hence it is clear, that the varied fortunes of the same Power are described under two

VOL. III.

1

Compare Rev. xvi. 10 with xiii. 2.

C C