Flowing as was the eloquence of this oration, it yet possessed not the
power of inducing one among those whom it addressed to forget the
sensation of his present suffering, and to fix his attention on the
vision of future advantage, spread before all listeners by the fluent
priest. With the same murmurs of querulous complaint, and the same
expressions of impotent hatred and and defiance of the Goths which had
fallen from them as they entered the church, the populace now departed
from it, to receive from the city officers the stinted allowance of
repugnant food, prepared for their hunger from the caldron in the public
square.
And see, already from other haunts in the neighbouring quarter of Rome
their fellow-citizens press onward at the given signal, to meet them
round the caldron's sides! The languid sentinel, released from duty,
turns his gaze from the sickening prospect of the Gothic camp, and
hastens to share the public meal; the baker starts from sleeping on his
empty counter, the beggar rises from his kennel in the butcher's vacant
out-house, the slave deserts his place by the smouldering kitchen-fire--
all hurry to swell the numbers of the guests that are bidden to the
wretched feast.
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