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should have accomplished a glorious reign of about twenty years 7.

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0 His diligence and fideky arc acknowledged' even by L'actantius, i

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unexperienced youth still betrayed by his manners C HA P

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Birth, education, and escape of Conflantine. AD. 274..

3 This tradition, unknoWn to the contemporaries of Constantine. was invented in the darkness of monflsteties, wds embellished by Jeffrey os Monmouth, and the writers of the xiith century, has been defended by our antiquarians of the last age, and is seriously related in the ponderous history os England, compiled by Mr. Carte (vol. i. p. 1470. He transports, however, the kingdom of Coil, the imaginary father os Helenn, from Essex to the wall of Anto; mnus.

9 Eutropius (x. 4.) expresses, in a few words, the real truth. and the occasion of the error, " ekobsmriorlmarrimnio ejus filius." Zofimus (1. ii. p, 783) eagerly seized the most unsavourable report," and is followed by Orosius (vii. 25.), whose authority is oddly enough overlooked by the indesatigable'but partial Tillemont. By insisting on the divorce of Helena, Diocletian acknowledged he: marriage. ' _

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dible diligence os Constantine '3. Leaving the
palace of Nicomedia in the night, he travelled
post through Bithynia, Thrace, Dacia, Panho-
nia, Italy, and Gaul, and amidst the 'joyful ac-
clamatiOns of' the people, reached the port of
Boulogne, in the very moment when his father
was preparing to embark for Britain '*. -
The British expedition, and an easy victory
over the barbarians of CaledOnia, were the last
exploits os the reign of Constantius. *He ended
his lise in the imperial palace of York, fifteen
months after he had received the title os Au-
gustus, and almost fourteen years and a half after
he had been promoted to the rank of Cmsar.
His death was immediately succeeded by the ele-
vation os Constantine. The ideas of inheritance
and succession are so very familiar, that the ge-
nerality of mankind consider them as founded,
not only in reason, but in, nature itself. Our
imagination readily transfers the same principles
from private propertyto public dominion: and
whenever'a virtuous father' leaves behind him a
son whose merit seems to justisy the esteem, or
even the hopes, os the people, the joint influence
os prejudice and of affection operates with'irre-

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