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216 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap xxxix and free-will, of time and eternity ; and generously attempted to reconcile the perfect attributes of the Deity with the apparent disorders of his moral and physical government. Such topics of consolation, so obvious, so vague, or so abstruse, are ineffectual to subdue the feelings of human nature. Yet the sense of misfortune may be diverted by the labour of thought ; and the sage who could artfully combine in the same work the various riches of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, must already have possessed the intrepid calmness which he affected to seek. Suspense, the worst of evils, was at length determined by the ministers of death, who executed, and perhaps exceeded, the inhuman mandate of Theodoric. A strong cord was fastened round the head of Boethius and forcibly tightened, till his eyes almost started from their sockets ; and some mercy may be discovered in the milder torture of beating him with clubs till he expired. 111 But his genius survived to diffuse a ray of know- ledge over the darkest ages of the Latin world ; the writings of the philosopher were translated by the most glorious of the English kings ; 112 and the third emperor of the name of Otho removed to a more honourable tomb the bones of a Catholic saint, who, from his Arian persecutors, had acquired the honours of martyrdom and the fame of miracles. 113 In the last hours of Boethius, he derived some comfort from the safety of his two sons, of his wife, and of his father-in-law, the venerable Symmachus. But the grief of Symmachus was indiscreet, and perhaps disrespectful : he had presumed to lament, he might dare to revenge, the death of an injured friend. He was dragged in chains from Rome to the palace of Ravenna ; and 111 He wa6 executed in Agro Calventiano (Calvenzano, between Marignano and Pavia), Anonym. Vales, p. 723 [§ 87], by order of Eusebius, count of Ticinum or Pavia. Tbe place of his confinement is styled the baptistery, an edifice and name peculiar to cathedrals. It is claimed by the perpetual tradition of the church of Pavia. The tower of Boethius subsisted till the year 1584, and the draught is yet preserved (Tiraboschi, torn. iii. p. 47, 48). 112 See the Biographica Britannica, Alfred, torn. i. p. 80, 2d edition. The work is still more honourable if performed under the learned eye of Alfred by his foreign and domestic doctors. [Alfred made both a prose and a poetical translation.] For the reputation of Boethius in the middle ages, consult Brucker (Hist. Crit. Philosoph. torn. iii. p. 565, 566). [Chaucer also translated the Consolation.] 113 The inscription on his new tomb was composed by the preoeptor of Otho the third, the learned Pope Silvester II. who, like Boethius himself, was styled a magician by the ignorance of the times. The Catholic martyr had carried his head in his hands a considerable way (Baronius, a.d. 526, No. 17, 18) ; yet, on a similar tale, a lady of my acquaintance onoe observed, " La distance n'y fait rien ; il n'y a que le premier pas qui coute " [Madame du Deffand].