OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 241 Alexius ; and his society, more suitable to his temper than to his age, was composed of a young wife and a favourite concubine. On the first alarm he rushed to Constantinople, impatient for the blood of the guilty ; but he was astonished by the silence of the palace, the tumult of the city, and the general desertion of mankind. Andronicus proclaimed a free pardon to his subjects ; they neither desired nor would grant forgiveness : he offered to resign the crown to his son Manuel ; but the virtues of the son could not expiate his father's crimes. The sea was still open for his retreat ; but the news of the revolution had flown along the coast ; when fear had ceased, obedience was no more ; the Imperial galley was pursued and taken by an armed brigantine ; and the tyrant was dragged to the presence of Isaac Angelus, loaded with fetters, and a long chain round his neck. His eloquence and the tears of his female companions pleaded in vain for his life ; but, instead of the decencies of a legal execution, the new monarch abandoned the criminal to the numerous sufferers whom he had deprived of a father, an husband, or a friend. His teeth and hair, an eye and a hand, were torn from him, as a poor compensation for their loss ; and a short respite Avas allowed, that he might feel the bitterness of death. Astride on a camel, without any danger of a rescue, he was carried through the city, and the basest of the populace rejoiced to trample on the fallen majesty of their prince. After a thousand blows and outrages, Andronicus was hung by the feet between two pillars that supported the statues of a wolf and sow ; and every hand that could reach the public enemy inflicted on his body some mark of ingenious or brutal cruelty, till two friendly or furious Italians, plunging their swords into his body, released him from all human punishment. In this long and painful agony, "Lord have mercy upon me ! " and "Why will you bruise a broken reed ? " were the only words that escaped from his mouth. Our hatred for the tyrant is lost in pity for the man ; nor can we blame his pusillanimous resigna- tion, since a Greek Christian was no longer master of his life. I have been tempted to expatiate on the extraordinary char- laaac n. acter and adventures of Andronicus ; but I shall here terminate ii85, sept. h the series of the Greek emperors since the time of Heraclius. The branches that sprang from the Comnenian trunk had in- sensibly withered ; and the male line was continued only in the posterity of Andronicus himself, who, in the public confusion, usurped the sovereignty of Trebizond, so obscure in history and so famous in romance. A private citizen of Philadelphia, Con- VOL. V. 16
