The character of Julian has been very variously repre sented, but certainly possesses none of that extraordinary merit with which some writers have invested it. He was remarkable for the most rigid temperance, and exemplary chastity ; for the mildness and clemency of his general con duct, and, at the same time, for his undaunted military courage ; for his love of learning and application to study, amidst the utmost attention to public affairs ; for his taste and facility in literary composition, and his intimate ac quaintance with the enthusiastic tenets of the modern Pla tonic philosophy. But numerous facts in his private his tory, resting on the testimony of his warmest admirers, and even of his own writings, prove him to have been a stran ger to true philosophy, and even to have been a slave to the rankest fanaticism. He boasts, with all the affectation of Diogenes, of his contempt for personal cleanliness, the length of his nails, the inky blackness of his hands, and the vermin of his shaggy beard. He was a vain and incessant talker, and fond, even to puerility, of popular applause. He was an ardent votary of the art of magic, and chose even his ministers of state by divination. He was addicted to the most abject practices of the grossest superstition, not only multiplying sacrifices to a degree which burdened the revenues of the empire, hut mingling publicly in the tem ples with the licentious crowd of priests and female dan cers, bringing the wood, blowing the fire, handling the knife, slaughtering the \ ictim, thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring animal, drawing loith the heart or liver, and earnestly reading the imaginary signs of future events. Nor was all this the mere effect of policy to recommend ancient rites, but actual belief and delight in the senseless ceremonials; for he observed, in private, numerous its and lites in honour of the gods and god desses, with whom he maintained a perpetual intercourse, fancying (we use the words of Gibbor) "that they de scended on earth to enjoy his conversation ; that they gent ly interrupted his slumbers, by touching his hand or hair ; that they warned him of every impending danger ; and con ducted him, by their infallible wisdom, in every action of his life ; and that he had acquired such an intimate know ledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to distinguish the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the form of Apollo from the figure of Hercules." llis philosophy
was little better than fanaticism, and his genius at times bordered on lunacy ; but he was, nevertheless, (with the exception of his measures against the Christians,) a good and wise emperor ; and there was, in his character, to use the words of Fleury, " such a mixture of good and bad qualities, that it is easy to praise and blame him, at the same time without deviating from the truth." Ilis works consist chiefly of a satire against the city of Antioch, enti tled /Viso/logo:, his treatise against the Christian Revela tion, epistles, and several orations or discourses. An edi tion of them in Greek and Latin was published by Span helm, in two vols. fol. in 1696 ; and an English translation, with copious notes from different authors, in two vols. 8vo. by the Rev. John Duncombe, in 1784. See Mosheim's Church History, vol. i. ; Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testimonies ; Gibbon's Roman History, vol. iv. ; La Vie de Julien, par l'Abbe Bleterie ; and, The Life and Character of Julian, illustrated in Seven Dissertations, by Des Voeux, &c. (q)