by whom it was directly consummated should have been styled "the Great." Yet we almost grudge Constantine the epithet. He was undoubtedly a good soldier and able administrator, and he must have had patience and energy, both praiseworthy qualities. He had some enlightened ideas of legislation, and seems on the whole to have aimed at the general good of mankind, as far as he understood it. He may, too, have been far-seeing, though we question whether he had quite enough depth and solidity of character to be so. Gibbon's estimate of him is not particularly flattering, and for this there may have been special and obvious reasons; but we do not think that it is singularly unfair. He is, in short, one of those men whom, though they have accomplished great and even worthy things, it is barely possible to admire. His wars with Maxentius and Licinius may be favourably regarded, and their result was satisfactory, inasmuch as they saved the world from rulers infinitely worse than himself But there are passages in his history which suggest that he was really capable of cold-blooded cruelty, and was not, like Alexander, the mere victim of an occasional violent and savage impulse. He was, it seems, of a calculating turn of mind, without much generosity, and by no means always swayed by very high motives. It would, however, be grossly unjust to brand him as a thoroughly selfish man and a conscious hypocrite. With much worldly sagacity he combined, like Severus, strange superstitious sentiments, which to us are indeed perplexing, and are yet not absolutely unintelligible, when we call to mind some of the grotesque
