The following historical summary from Elliot’s Horae Apocalypticae being strictly correct, I cannot do better than to lay it before my readers. "The first angel sounds his trumpet: and lo the same tremendous tempest as before, black with other clouds from the cold hail-generating countries beyond the Danube, and charged with lightning and hail, appears driving westward. "The third of the land," or continental provinces of the Western division of the Roman empire, is declared the fatal scene of ravage. The Asiatic continent and maritime province of Africa are to remain unharmed by the storm: and the European provinces, too, of the Eastern Empire mostly to escape. The skirts of the storm discharge themselves, as it passes forward, on the Rhoetian hill-country. Then quickly its course is towards Italy. As it sweeps across the Italian frontier, other terrific thunder-clouds from the distant northwest quarter of the heaven succeed, and intermingle with the first. Once and again, the almost united tempests spread in devastating fury over Italy, beyond the Alps and Apennines. Then dividing, a part, impelled yet further south, bursts with terrific lightnings directly over the Seven-Hilled Imperial City, and passes thence to the southernmost coast of Bruttium beyond. A part, driven backward, takes a westerly course over the Rhine, into Gaul, and far and wide devastates it; then, crossing over the Pyrenaean chain, pours its fury on the Spanish provinces: nor spends itself till it has reached the far shores, west and south, of the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Thus has the entire continental division of the Western Empire been involved in its ravages. Throughout the whole, the lightning fire runs along the ground, even as in the plagues of ancient Egypt, burning in wide spreading conflagration country and town, trees and pasture. And there are signs, too, not to be mistaken, of the destruction of life, as well as of vegetation: for blood appears mixed with the fire and hail. Slowly at length the storm subsides, destroying, however, even in its subsidence. The desolation that it leaves is frightful. The land was as the garden of Eden before it. It remains a wasted wilderness." (Vol. 1. p. 343).

ALARIC and RHADAGAISUS were the leading spirits of what Claudian, a contemporary writer, styles the "hail-storm." With singular impolicy, Arcadius, the emperor of the eastern third, which fell to him on the death of Theodosius, made Alaric Master General of the Eastern Illyricum, and furnished him by so doing with arms from the imperial armories. During four years he made preparation for the invasion of the West. Installed by imperial authority in the centre of the Illyrian Third, he was seated, as Gibbon expresses it, "on the verge, as it were, of the two empires." The separate halves of the catholic body politic were before him, devoted of heaven to be ruthlessly scathed and torn in his merciless career. As preliminary to this sanguinary enterprize, the chieftains of his nation, according to ancient custom, raised him upon a shield, and proclaimed him King of the Visigoths.

At this epoch, the first trumpet sounded, A.D. 395-400. "Fame," says Claudian, "encircling with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the barbarian army, and filled Italy with consternation." The public distress was aggravated by the fears and reproaches of superstition. The pagans had no omens and sacrifices to consult; but the infatuated catholics still derived some comfort from what they regarded as the powerful intercession of saint and martyr ghosts. The emperor Honorius was pre-eminent in fear. The approach of Alaric to Milan caused the Emperor to flee, and take refuge at Asta, a small fortified town, in Piedmont, in which he was hard pressed by the Goths. The timely arrival of the renowned Stilicho effected his deliverance. The Goths retreated, and were afterwards defeated at Pollentia. But Alaric soon repaired his losses, and boldly resolved to break through the unguarded passes of the Apennine, to spread desolation over the fruitful face of Tuscany, and to conquer or die before the gates of Rome. Before, however, his threat was carried into effect, another "dark cloud collected along the coast of the Baltic, and burst in thunder upon the banks of the upper Danube." Rhadagaisus, the king of the confederate Germans, passed without resistance the Alps, the Po, and the Apennine, A.D. 406. Many cities of Italy were pillaged or destroyed. Alaric was a catholic and a leader of a disciplined army; but, Rhadagaisus was a savage, and a stranger to the manners, religion and language of the South. The senate and people of Rome, "the trees and green grass" of the State, trembled while yet his presence was before Florence, 180 miles from Rome, which he vowed to reduce to a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the most illustrious Romans on the altars of those gods who were appeased by human blood. But the fierceness of this portion of the hail and fire mingled with blood, was destined to expend itself before Florence. The strategy of Stilicho again saved the capital, and caused more than a third of the vast and various multitude of Sueves, Vandals,and Burgundians, who adhered to the standard of Rhadagaisus, to perish on the fields of Tuscany. But one hundred thousand Germans still remained in arms after the death of Rhadagaisus; and the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by the remnant of the great army of the Baltic. "This memorable passage (of the Rhine) of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered," says Gibbon, "as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth were, from that fatal moment, levelled with the ground."

The subjects of Rome in Gaul, "the trees" and "green grass" of the earth, unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tiber, with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms. This scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert, and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand catholics massacred in their temples; and the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to "the hail and fire mingled with blood" -- the barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, "the trees" and "green grass," laden with the spoils of their houses and altars; so that in less than two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenees.

As I am not writing a detailed history of the times, but selecting so much from history already written as will illustrate what has been fulfilled of The Apocalypse, it will be unnecessary for me to do more than to note, that the calamities that befel "the third of the earth" were aggravated by the revolt of the army in Britain, which renounced its allegiance to the Emperor of the West, and set up a new emperor, named Constantine, whom they found in the lowest ranks of the army. He established himself in Britain and Gaul, and received also the submission of Spain, whose feeble resistance was ineffectual to prevent the authority of the usurper being acknowledged from the walls of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules.

Adversity had exercised and displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of his valor invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the barbarian warriors, who from the Euxine to the Rhine were agitated by the desire of rapine and conquest. After the death of Stilicho, he put his troops in motion, and A.D. 408, with bold and rapid marches, passed the Alps and the Po; pillaged several cities; proceeded on to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the sea coast of the Hadriatic, and meditated the conquest of the ancient Mistress of the World. An Italian hermit sought to turn him from his purpose; but was silenced by the solemn asseveration of Alaric, that "he felt a secret and preternatural impulse, which directed, and even compelled, his march to the gates of Rome."

During a period of six hundred and nineteen years "the Queen of the Earth" had never been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy. The hour had now arrived for this indignity. The city was blockaded by Alaric, whose vigilance inflicted upon it at length the horrid calamities of famine. Enraged by hunger, the desperate devoured the bodies of their victims; and even mothers tasted the flesh of their slaughtered infants! Many thousands of the inhabitants expired in their houses, or in the streets, for want of sustenance; and the stench arising from so many putrid and unburied carcases, infected the air. At length Alaric was induced to retire by the payment of an enormous ransom, and to enter upon negotiations for peace. But these failed through the imbecillity and infatuation of the administration. A second siege of Rome was formed; and a third followed, A.D. 410, Aug. 24. At midnight, the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and "civilized" so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.

This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror. The people deplored the afflictions of "the Queen of Cities;" while the clergy, who applied justly to recent events the lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were foolishly tempted to confound the destruction of the capital, and the dissolution of the globe.

The victorious Goths evacuated Rome on the sixth day, and marched into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose their passage, and plundering the unresisting country. The "hail and fire mingled with blood" continued to consume "the trees," and to burn up "the green grass" for a still longer period than that reached by the termination of the career of the King of the Goths. While meditating further conquests beyond the limits of this trumpet, Alaric was suddenly arrested by the power of death, which fixed, after a short illness, the fatal term to his conquests. His sepulchre was built in the bed of the Consentia, a river in Bruttium, and adorned with the spoils and trophies of Rome. The secret of its location was concealed by restoring the waters to their accustomed channel, and the massacre of the prisoners employed in constructing it:- "The last Italian blood," remarks Elliot, "that mingled with the fire and hail," under the judgments of the first trumpet.