The reform he makes by these means is hollow and momentary--it is swept away with himself: it was but the trick--the show--the wasted genius of a conjuror: the curtain falls--the magic is over--the cup and balls are kicked aside.

Better one slow step in enlightenment,--which being made by the reason of a whole people, cannot recede,--than these sudden flashes in the depth of the general night, which the darkness, by contrast doubly dark, swallows up everlastingly again! As, slowly and musingly, Rienzi turned to quit the church, he felt a light touch upon his shoulder.
"Fair evening to you, Sir Scholar," said a frank voice.
"To you, I return the courtesy," answered Rienzi, gazing upon the person who thus suddenly accosted him, and in whose white cross and martial bearing the reader recognises the Knight of St.John.
"You know me not, I think ?" said Montreal; "but that matters little, we may easily commence our acquaintance: for me, indeed, I am fortunate enough to have made myself already acquainted with you." "Possibly we have met elsewhere, at the house of one of those nobles to whose rank you seem to belong ?" "Belong! no, not exactly!" returned Montreal, proudly.

"Highborn and great as your magnates deem themselves, I would not, while the mountains can yield one free spot for my footstep, change my place in the world's many grades for theirs.

To the brave, there is but one sort of plebeian, and that is the coward.

But you, sage Rienzi," continued the Knight, in a gayer tone, "I have seen in more stirring scenes than the hall of a Roman Baron." Rienzi glanced keenly at Montreal, who met his eye with an open brow.
"Yes!" resumed the Knight--"but let us walk on; suffer me for a few moments to be your companion.