In looking back at this series of Caesars, we are horror-struck at the
blood-stained picture. Well might a foreign writer, in reviewing the same
succession, declare, that it is like passing into a new world when the
transition is made from this chapter of the human history to that of
modern Europe. From Commodus to Decius are sixteen names, which, spread
through a space of 59 years, assign to each Caesar a reign of less than
four years. And Casaubon remarks, that, in one period of 160 years, there
were 70 persons who assumed the Roman purple; which gives to each not much
more than two years. On the other hand, in the history of France, we find
that, through a period of 1200 years, there have been no more than 64
kings: upon an average, therefore, each king appears to have enjoyed a
reign of nearly nineteen years. This vast difference in security is due to
two great principles,--that of primogeniture as between son and son, and
of hereditary succession as between a son and every other pretender. Well
may we hail the principle of hereditary right as realizing the praise of
Burke applied to chivalry, viz.
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