{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3821/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3821","id":"gutenberg_3821","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3821","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: History - European","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Germanic peoples","Middle Ages","Rome -- History -- Germanic Invasions, 3rd-6th centuries"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1889 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ROMAN AND THE TEUTON\n\n\nA SERIES OF LECTURES\n\nDELIVERED BEFORE\n\n_THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE_\n\nBY\nCHARLES KINGSLEY, M.A.\n\n_NEW EDITION_, _WITH PREFACE_, _BY_\nPROFESSOR F. MAX MULLER\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO.\n1889\n\n[_All rights reserved_]\n\nOXFORD:\nHORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY.\n\nDEDICATED\nTO\nThe Gentlemen of the University\nWHO DID ME THE HONOUR\nTO ATTEND THESE LECTURES.\n\nContents\n\nPreface by Professor F.  Max Muller\n   The Forest Children\n   The Dying Empire\n   Preface to Lecture III\n   The Human Deluge\n   The Gothic Civilizer\n   Dietrich's End\n   The Nemesis of the Goths\n   Paulus Diaconus\n   The Clergy and the Heathen\n   The Monk a Civilizer\n   The Lombard Laws\n   The Popes and the Lombards\n   The Strategy of Prividence\n   Appendix--Inaugural Lecture: The Limits of Exact Science as Applied to\nHistory\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nNever shall I forget the moment when for the last time I gazed upon the\nmanly features of Charles Kingsley, features which Death had rendered\ncalm, grand, sublime.  The constant struggle that in life seemed to allow\nno rest to his expression, the spirit, like a caged lion, shaking the\nbars of his prison, the mind striving for utterance, the soul wearying\nfor loving response,--all that was over.  There remained only the\nsatisfied expression of triumph and peace, as of a soldier who had fought\na good fight, and who, while sinking into the stillness of the slumber of\ndeath, listens to the distant sounds of music and to the shouts of\nvictory.  One saw the ideal man, as Nature had meant him to be, and one\nfelt that there is no greater sculptor than Death.\n\nAs one looked on that marble statue which only some weeks ago had so\nwarmly pressed one's hand, his whole life flashed through one's thoughts.\nOne remembered the young curate and the Saint's Tragedy; the chartist\nparson and Alton Locke; the happy poet and the Sands of Dee; the\nbrilliant novel-writer and Hypatia and Westward-Ho; the Rector of\nEversley and his Village Sermons; the beloved professor at Cambridge, the\nbusy canon at Chester, the powerful preacher in Westminster Abbey.  One\nthought of him by the Berkshire chalk-streams and on the Devonshire\ncoast, watching the beauty and wisdom of Nature, reading her solemn\nlessons, chuckling too over her inimitable fun.  One saw him in\ntown-alleys, preaching the Gospel of godliness and cleanliness, while\nsmoking his pipe with soldiers and navvies.  One heard him in drawing-\nrooms, listened to with patient silence, till one of his vigorous or\nquaint speeches bounded forth, never to be forgotten.  How children\ndelighted in him!  How young, wild men believed in him, and obeyed him\ntoo!  How women were captivated by his chivalry, older men by his genuine\nhumility and sympathy!\n\nAll that was now passing away--was gone.  But as one looked on him for\nthe last time on earth, one felt that greater than the curate, the poet,\nthe professor, the canon, had been the man himself, with his warm heart,\nhis honest purposes, his trust in his friends, his readiness to spend\nhimself, his chivalry and humility, worthy of a better age.\n\nOf all this the world knew little;--yet few men excited wider and\nstronger sympathies.\n\nWho can forget that funeral on the 28th Jan., 1875, and the large sad\nthrong that gathered round his grave?  There was the representative of\nthe Prince of Wales, and close by the gipsies of the Eversley common, who\nused to call him their Patrico-rai, their Priest-King.  There was the old\nSquire of his village, and the labourers, young and old, to whom he had\nbeen a friend and a father.  There were Governors of distant Colonies,\nofficers, and sailors, the Bishop of his diocese, and the Dean of his\nabbey; there were the leading Nonconformists of the neighbourhood, and\nhis own devoted curates, Peers and Members of the House of Commons,\nauthors and publishers; and outside the church-yard, the horses and the\nhounds and the huntsman in pink, for though as good a clergyman as any,\nCharles Kingsley had been a good sportsman too, and had taken in his life\nmany a fence as bravely as he took the last fence of all, without fear or\ntrembling.  All that he had loved, and all that had loved him was there,\nand few eyes were dry when he was laid in his own yellow gravel bed, the\nold trees which he had planted and cared for waving their branches to him\nfor the last time, and the grey sunny sky looking down with calm pity on\nthe deserted rectory, and on the short joys and the shorter sufferings of\nmortal men.\n\nAll went home feeling that life was poorer, and every one knew that he\nhad lost a friend who had been, in some peculiar sense, his own.  Charles\nKingsley will be missed in England, in the English colonies, in America,\nwhere he spent his last happy year; aye, wherever Saxon speech and Saxon\nthought is understood.  He will be mourned for, yearned for, in every\nplace in which he passed some days of his busy life.  As to myself, I\nfeel as if another cable had snapped that tied me to this hospitable\nshore.\n\nWhen an author or a poet dies, the better part of him, it is often said,\nis left in his works.  So it is in many cases.  But with Kingsley his\nlife and his works were one.  All he wrote was meant for the day when he\nwrote it.  That was enough for him.  He hardly gave himself time to think\nof fame and the future.  Compared with a good work done, with a good word\nspoken, with a silent grasp of the hand from a young man he had saved\nfrom mischief, or with a 'Thank you, Sir,' from a poor woman to whom he\nhad been a comfort, he would have despised what people call glory, like\nincense curling away in smoke.  He was, in one sense of the word, a\ncareless writer.  He did his best at the time and for the time.  He did\nit with a concentrated energy of will which broke through all\ndifficulties.  In his flights of imagination, in the light and fire of\nhis language he had few equals, if any; but the perfection and classical\nfinish which can be obtained by a sustained effort only, and by a\npatience which shrinks from no drudgery, these are wanting in most of his\nworks.\n\nHowever, fame, for which he cared so little, has come to him.  His bust\nwill stand in Westminster Abbey, in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist,\nby the side of his friend, Frederick Maurice; and in the Temple of Fame\nwhich will be consecrated to the period of Victoria and Albert, there\nwill be a niche for Charles Kingsley, the author of Alton Locke and\nHypatia.\n\nSooner or later a complete edition of his works will be wanted, though we\nmay doubt whether he himself would have wished all his literary works to\nbe preserved.  From what I knew of him and his marvellous modesty, I\nshould say decidedly not.  I doubt more especially, whether he would have\nwished the present book, _The Roman and the Teuton_, to be handed down to\nposterity.  None of his books was so severely criticised as this volume\nof Lectures, delivered before the University of Cambridge, and published\nin 1864.  He himself did not republish it, and it seems impossible to\nspeak in more depreciatory terms of his own historical studies than he\ndoes himself again and again in the course of his lectures.  Yet these\nlectures, it should be remembered, were more largely attended than almost\nany other lectures at Cambridge.  They produced a permanent impression on\nmany a young mind.  They are asked for again and again, and when the\npublishers wished for my advice as to the expediency of bringing out a\nnew and cheaper edition, I could not hesitate as to what answer to give.\n\nI am not so blinded by my friendship for Kingsley as to say that these\nlectures are throughout what academical lectures ought to be.  I only\nwish some one would tell me what academical lectures at Oxford and\nCambridge can be, as long as the present system of teaching and examining\nis maintained.  It is easy to say what these lectures are not.  They do\nnot profess to contain the results of long continued original research.\nThey are not based on a critical appreciation of the authorities which\nhad to be consulted.  They are not well arranged, systematic or complete.\nAll this the suddenly elected professor of history at Cambridge would\nhave been the first to grant.  'I am not here,' he says, 'to teach you\nhistory.  I am here to teach you how to teach yourselves history.'  I\nmust say even more.  It seems to me that these lectures were not always\nwritten in a perfectly impartial and judicial spirit, and that\noccasionally they are unjust to the historians who, from no other motive\nbut a sincere regard for truth, thought it their duty to withhold their\nassent from many of the commonly received statements of mediaeval\nchroniclers.\n\nBut for all that, let us see what these Lectures are, and whether there\nis not room for them by the side of other works.  First of all, according\nto the unanimous testimony of those who heard them delivered at\nCambridge, they stirred up the interest of young men, and made them ask\nfor books which Undergraduates had never asked for before at the\nUniversity libraries.  They made many people who read them afterwards,\ntake a new interest in old and half-forgotten kings and battles, and they\nextorted even from unfriendly critics the admission that certain\nchapters, such as, for instance, 'The Monk as a Civiliser,' displayed in\nan unexpected way his power of appreciating the good points in\ncharacters, otherwise most antipathic to the apostle of Manly\nChristianity.  They contain, in fact, the thoughts of a poet, a moralist,\na politician, a theologian, and, before all, of a friend and counsellor\nof young men, while reading for them and with them one of the most awful\nperiods in the history of mankind, the agonies of a dying Empire and the\nbirth of new nationalities.  History was but his text, his chief aim was\nthat of the teacher and preacher, and as an eloquent interpreter of the\npurposes of history before an audience of young men to whom history is\nbut too often a mere succession of events to be learnt by heart, and to\nbe ready against periodical examinations, he achieved what he wished to\nachieve.  Historians by profession would naturally be incensed at some\nportions of this book, but even they would probably admit by this time,\nthat there are in it whole chapters full of excellence, telling passages,\nhappy delineations, shrewd remarks, powerful outbreaks of real eloquence,\nwhich could not possibly be consigned to oblivion.\n\nNor would it have been possible to attempt to introduce any alterations,\nor to correct what may seem to be mistakes.  The book is not meant as a\ntext-book or as an authority, any more than Schiller's History of the\nThirty Years' War; it should be read in future, as what it was meant to\nbe from the first, Kingsley's thoughts on some of the moral problems\npresented by the conflict between the Roman and the Teuton.  One cannot\nhelp wishing that, instead of lectures, Kingsley had given us another\nnovel, like Hypatia, or a real historical tragedy, a Dietrich von Bern,\nembodying in living characters one of the fiercest struggles of humanity,\nthe death of the Roman, the birth of the German world.  Let me quote here\nwhat Bunsen said of Kingsley's dramatic power many years ago:\n\n'I do not hesitate (he writes) to call these two works, the _Saint's\nTragedy_ and _Hypatia_, by far the most important and perfect of this\ngenial writer.  In these more particularly I find the justification of a\nhope which I beg to be allowed to express--that Kingsley might continue\nShakspeare's historical plays.  I have for several years made no secret\nof it, that Kingsley seems to me the genius of our century, called to\nplace by the side of that sublime dramatic series from _King John_ to\n_Henry VIII_, another series of equal rank, from _Edward VI_ to the\n_Landing of William of Orange_.  This is the only historical development\nof Europe which unites in itself all vital elements, and which we might\nlook upon without overpowering pain.  The tragedy of _St. Elizabeth_\nshows that Kingsley can grapple, not only with the novel, but with the\nmore severe rules of dramatic art.  And _Hypatia_ proves, on the largest\nscale, that he can discover in the picture of the historical past, the\ntruly human, the deep, the permanent, and that he knows how to represent\nit.  How, with all this, he can hit the fresh tone of popular life, and\ndraw humourous characters and complications with Shakspearian energy, is\nproved by all his works.  And why should he not undertake this great\ntask?  There is a time when the true poet, the prophet of the present,\nmust bid farewell to the questions of the day, which seem so great\nbecause they are so near, but are, in truth, but small and unpoetical.  He\nmust say to himself, \"Let the dead bury their dead\"--and the time has\ncome that Kingsley should do so.'\n\nA great deal has been written on mistakes which Kingsley was supposed to\nhave made in these Lectures, but I doubt whether these criticisms were\nalways perfectly judicial and fair.  For instance, Kingsley's using the\nname of Dietrich, instead of Theodoric, was represented as the very gem\nof a blunder, and some critics went so far as to hint that he had taken\nTheodoric for a Greek word, as an adjective of Theodorus.  This, of\ncourse, was only meant as a joke, for on page 120 Kingsley had said, in a\nnote, that the name of _Theodoric_, _Theuderic_, _Dietrich_, signifies\n'king of nations.'  He therefore knew perfectly well that _Theodoric_ was\nsimply a Greek adaptation of the Gothic name _Theode-reiks_, _theod_\nmeaning people, _reiks_, according to Grimm, _princeps_ {1}.  But even if\nhe had called the king Theodorus, the mistake would not have been\nunpardonable, for he might have appealed to the authority of Gregory of\nTours, who uses not only Theodoricus, but also Theodorus, as the same\nname.\n\nA more serious charge, however, was brought against him for having used\nthe High-German form _Dietrich_, instead of the original form\n_Theodereiks_ or _Theoderic_, or even _Theodoric_.  Should I have altered\nthis?  I believe not; for it is clear to me that Kingsley had his good\nreasons for preferring Dietrich to Theodoric.\n\nHe introduces him first to his hearers as 'Theodoric, known in German\nsong as Dietrich of Bern.'  He had spoken before of the Visi-Gothic\nTheodoric, and of him he never speaks as Dietrich.  Then, why should he\nhave adopted this High-German name for the great Theodoric, and why\nshould he speak of Attila too as Etzel?\n\nOne of the greatest of German historians, Johannes von Muller, does the\nsame.  He always calls Theodoric, Dietrich of Bern; and though he gives\nno reasons for it, his reasons can easily be guessed.  Soon after\nTheodoric's death, the influence of the German legends on history, and of\nhistory on the German legends, became so great that it was impossible for\na time to disentangle two characters, originally totally distinct, viz.\n_Thjodrekr_ of the Edda, the _Dietrich_ of the German poetry on one side,\nand the King of the Goths, _Theodoric_, on the other.  What had long been\nsaid and sung about Thjodrekr and Dietrich was believed to have happened\nto King Theodoric, while at the same time historical and local elements\nin the life of Theodoric, residing at Verona, were absorbed by the\nlegends of Thjodrekr and Dietrich.  The names of the legendary hero and\nthe historical king were probably identical, though even that is not\nquite certain {2}; but at all events, after Theodoric's death, all the\nnumerous dialectic varieties of the name, whether in High or in\nLow-German, were understood by the people at large, both of the hero and\nof the king.\n\nFew names have had a larger number of alias'.  They have been carefully\ncollected by Graff, Grimm, Forstemann, Pott, and others.  I here give the\nprincipal varieties of this name, as actually occurring in MSS., and\narranged according to the changes of the principal consonants:--\n\n(1)  With _Th-d_: Theudoricus, Theudericus, [Greek text], Thiodiricus,\nThiodericus, Thiodric, Thiodricus, Thiodrih, Theodoricus, Theodericus,\nTheoderic, Theodrich, Thiadric, Thiadrich, Thiedorik, Thiederic,\nThiederik, Thiederich, Thiedorich, Thiedric, Thiedrich, Thideric,\nThiederich, Thidrich, Thodericus, Thiaedric, Thieoderich, Thederich,\nThedric.\n\n(2)  With _T-d_: Teudericus, Teudricus, Tiodericus, Teodoricus,\nTeodericus, Teodric, Teodrich, Tiadric, Tiedrik, Tiedrich, Tiedric,\nTidericus, Tiderich, Tederich.\n\n(3)  With _D-d_: [Greek text], Diodericus, Deoderich, Deodrich,\nDiederich, Diderich.\n\n(4)  With _Th-t_: Thiotiricus, Thiotirih, Thiotiricus, Thiotrih,\nTheotoricus, Theotericus, Theoterih, Theotrih, Theotrich, Thiatric,\nThieterich, Thietrih, Thietrich, Theatrih.\n\n(5)  With _T-t_: Teutrich, Teoterih, Teotrich, Teotrih, Tieterich,\nTeatrih, Tiheiterich.\n\n(6)  With _D-t_: Dioterih, Diotericus, Diotricus, Deotrich, Deotrih,\nDieterih, Dieterich, Dietrich, Diterih, Ditricus.\n\n(7)  With _Th-th_: Theotherich, Theothirich.\n\n(8)  With _T-th_: _deest_.\n\n(9)  With _D-th_: Dietherich.\n\nIt is quite true that, strictly speaking, the forms with Th-d, are Low-\nGerman, and those with D-t, High-German, but before we trust ourselves to\nthis division for historical purposes, we must remember three facts: (1)\nthat Proper Names frequently defy Grimm's Law; (2) that in High-German\nMSS. much depends on the locality in which they are written; (3) that\nHigh-German is not in the strict sense of the word a corruption of Low-\nGerman, and, at all events, not, as Grimm supposed, chronologically\nposterior to Low-German, but that the two are parallel dialects, like\nDoric and Aeolic, the Low-German being represented by the earliest\nliterary documents, Gothic and Saxon, the High-German asserting its\nliterary presence later, not much before the eighth century, but\nafterwards maintaining its literary and political supremacy from the time\nof Charlemagne to the present day.\n\nWhen Theodoric married Odeflede, the daughter of Childebert, and a sister\nof Chlodwig, I have little doubt that, at the court of Chlodwig or\nClovis, his royal brother-in-law was spoken of in conversation as\nDioterih, although in official documents, and in the history of Gregory\nof Tours, he appears under his classical name of Theodoricus, in\nJornandes Theodericus.  Those who, with Grimm {3}, admit a transition of\nLow into High-German, and deny that the change of Gothic _Th_ into High-\nGerman _D_ took place before the sixth or seventh century, will find it\ndifficult to account, in the first century, for the name of Deudorix, a\nGerman captive, the nephew of Melo the Sigambrian, mentioned by Strabo\n{4}.  In the oldest German poem in which the name of Dietrich occurs, the\nsong of Hildebrand and Hadebrand, written down in the beginning of the\nninth century {5}, we find both forms, the Low-German _Theotrih_, and the\nHigh-German _Deotrih_, used side by side.\n\nVery soon, however, when High-German became the more prevalent language\nin Germany, German historians knew both of the old legendary hero and of\nthe Ost-gothic king, by one and the same name, the High-German\n_Dietrich_.\n\nIf therefore Johannes von Muller spoke of Theodoric of Verona as Dietrich\nvon Bern, he simply intended to carry on the historical tradition.  He\nmeant to remind his readers of the popular name which they all knew, and\nto tell them,--This Dietrich with whom you are all acquainted from your\nchildhood, this Dietrich of whom so much is said and sung in your\nlegendary stories and poems, the famous Dietrich of Bern, this is really\nthe Theoderic, the first German who ruled Italy for thirty-three years,\nmore gloriously than any Roman Emperor before or after.  I see no harm in\nthis, as long as it is done on purpose, and as long as the purpose which\nJohannes von Muller had in his mind, was attained.\n\nNo doubt the best plan for an historian to follow is to call every man by\nthe name by which he called himself.  Theodoric, we know, could not\nwrite, but he had a gold plate {6} made in which the first four letters\nof his name were incised, and when it was fixed on the paper, the King\ndrew his pen through the intervals.  Those four letters were [Greek\ntext], and though we should expect that, as a Goth, he would have spelt\nhis name _Thiudereik_, yet we have no right to doubt, that the vowels\nwere _eo_, and not _iu_.  But again and again historians spell proper\nnames, not as they were written by the people themselves, but as they\nappear in the historical documents through which they became chiefly\nknown.  We speak of Plato, because we have Roman literature between us\nand Greece.  American names are accepted in history through a Spanish,\nIndian names through an English medium.  The strictly Old High-German\nform of Carolus Magnus would be Charal, A. S. Carl; yet even in the Oaths\nof Strassburg (842) the name appears as Karlus and as Karl, and has\nremained so ever since {7}.  In the same document we find Ludher for\nLothar, Ludhuwig and Lodhuvig for Ludovicus, the oldest form being\nChlodowich: and who would lay down the law, which of these forms shall be\nused for historical purposes?\n\nI have little doubt that Kingsley's object in retaining the name Dietrich\nfor the Ost-gothic king was much the same as Johannes von Muller's.  You\nknow, he meant to say, of Dietrich of Bern, of all the wonderful things\ntold of him in the Nibelunge and other German poems.  Well, that is the\nDietrich of the German people, that is what the Germans themselves have\nmade of him, by transferring to their great Gothic king some of the most\nincredible achievements of one of their oldest legendary heroes.  They\nhave changed even his name, and as the children in the schools of Germany\n{8} still speak of him as their Dietrich von Bern, let him be to us too\nDietrich, not simply the Ost-gothic Theoderic, but the German Dietrich.\n\nI confess I see no harm in that, though a few words on the strange\nmixture of legend and history might have been useful, because the case of\nTheodoric is one of the most luculent testimonies for that blending of\nfact and fancy in strictly historical times which people find it so\ndifficult to believe, but which offers the key, and the only true key,\nfor many of the most perplexing problems, both of history and of\nmythology.\n\nOriginally nothing could be more different than the Dietrich of the old\nlegend and the Dietrich of history.  The former is followed by misfortune\nthrough the whole of his life.  He is oppressed in his youth by his\nuncle, the famous Ermanrich {9}; he has to spend the greater part of his\nlife (thirty years) in exile, and only returns to his kingdom after the\ndeath of his enemy.  Yet whenever he is called Dietrich of Bern, it is\nbecause the real Theodoric, the most successful of Gothic conquerors,\nruled at Verona.  When his enemy was called Otacher, instead of Sibich,\nit is because the real Theodoric conquered the real Odoacer.  When the\nking, at whose court he passes his years of exile, is called Etzel, it is\nbecause many German heroes had really taken refuge in the camp of Attila.\nThat Attila died two years before Theodoric of Verona was born, is no\ndifficulty to a popular poet, nor even the still more glaring\ncontradiction between the daring and ferocious character of the real\nAttila and the cowardice of his namesake Etzel, as represented in the\npoem of the Nibelunge.  Thus was legend quickened by history.\n\nOn the other hand, if historians, such as Gregory I (Dial. iv. 36) {10},\ntell us that an Italian hermit had been witness in a vision to the\ndamnation of Theodoric, whose soul was plunged, by the ministers of\ndivine vengeance, into the volcano of Lipari, one of the flaming mouths\nof the infernal world, we may recognise in the heated imagination of the\northodox monk some recollection of the mysterious end of the legendary\nDietrich {11}.  Later on, the legendary and the real hero were so firmly\nwelded together that, as early as the twelfth century, chroniclers are at\ntheir wits' end how to reconcile facts and dates.\n\nEkkehard, in his Chronicon Universale {12}, which ends 1126 A.D., points\nout the chronological contradiction between Jornandes, who places the\ndeath of Ermanrich long before Attila, and the popular story which makes\nhim and Dietrich, the son of Dietmar, his contemporaries.\n\nOtto von Freising {13}, in the first half of the twelfth century,\nexpresses the same perplexity when he finds that Theodoric is made a\ncontemporary of Hermanricus and Attila, though it is certain that Attila\nruled long after Hermanric, and that, after the death of Attila,\nTheodoric, when eight years old, was given by his father as a hostage to\nthe emperor Leo.\n\nGottfried von Viterbo {14}, in the second half of the twelfth century,\nexpresses his difficulties in similar words.\n\nAll these chroniclers who handed down the historical traditions of\nGermany were High-Germans, and thus it has happened that in Germany\nTheodoric the Great became Dietrich, as Strataburgum became Strassburg,\nor Turicum, Zurich.  Whether because English belongs to the Low German\nbranch, it is less permissible to an English historian than to a German\nto adopt these High-German names, I cannot say: all I wished to point out\nwas that there was a very intelligible reason why Kingsley should have\npreferred the popular and poetical name of Dietrich, even though it was\nHigh-German, either to his real Gothic name, Theodereik, or to its\nclassical metamorphosis, Theodoricus or Theodorus.\n\nSome other mistakes, too, which have been pointed out, did not seem to me\nso serious as to justify their correction in a posthumous edition.  It\nwas said, for instance, that Kingsley ought not to have called Odoacer\nand Theodoric, Kings of Italy, as they were only lieutenants of the\nEastern Caesar.  Cassiodorus, however, tells us that Odoacer assumed the\nname of king (nomen regis Odoacer assumpsit), and though Gibbon points\nout that this may only mean that he assumed the abstract title of a king,\nwithout applying it to any particular nation or country, yet that great\nhistorian himself calls Odoacer, King of Italy, and shows how he was\ndetermined to abolish the useless and expensive office of vicegerent of\nthe emperor.  Kingsley guesses very ingeniously, that Odoacer's assumed\ntitle, King of nations, may have been the Gothic _Theode-reiks_, the very\nname of Theodoric.  As to Theodoric himself, Kingsley surely knew his\nreal status, for he says: 'Why did he not set himself up as Caesar of\nRome?  Why did he always consider himself as son-in-arms, and\nquasi-vassal of the Caesar of Constantinople?'\n\nLastly, in speaking of the extinction of the Western Empire with Romulus\nAugustulus, Kingsley again simply followed the lead of Gibbon and other\nhistorians; nor can it be said that the expression is not perfectly\nlegitimate, however clearly modern research may have shown that the Roman\nEmpire, though dead, lived.\n\nSo much in defence, or at all events, in explanation, of expressions and\nstatements which have been pointed out as most glaring mistakes in\nKingsley's lectures.  I think it must be clear that in all these cases\nalterations would have been impossible.  There were other passages, where\nI should gladly have altered or struck out whole lines, particularly in\nthe ethnological passages, and in the attempted etymologies of German\nproper names.  Neither the one nor the other, I believe, are Kingsley's\nown, though I have tried in vain to find out whence he could possibly\nhave taken them.\n\nThese, however, are minor matters which are mentioned chiefly in order to\nguard against the impression that, because I left them unchanged, I\napproved of them.  The permanent interest attaching to these lectures\ndoes not spring from the facts which they give.  For these, students will\nrefer to Gibbon.  They will be valued chiefly for the thoughts which they\ncontain, for the imagination and eloquence which they display, and last,\nnot least, for the sake of the man, a man, it is true, of a warm heart\nrather than of a cold judgment, but a man whom, for that very reason,\nmany admired, many loved, and many will miss, almost every day of their\nlife.\n\nM. M.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE I--THE FOREST CHILDREN.\n\n\nI wish in this first lecture to give you some general conception of the\ncauses which urged our Teutonic race to attack and destroy Rome.  I shall\ntake for this one lecture no special text-book: but suppose you all to be\nacquainted with the Germania of Tacitus, and with the 9th Chapter of\nGibbon.  And I shall begin, if you will allow me, by a parable, a myth, a\nsaga, such as the men of whom I am going to tell you loved; and if it\nseem to any of you childish, bear in mind that what is childish need not\ntherefore be shallow.  I know that it is not history.  These lectures\nwill not be, in the popular sense, history at all.  But I beg you to bear\nin mind that I am not here to teach you history.  No man can do that.  I\nam here to teach you how to teach yourselves history.  I will give you\nthe scaffolding as well as I can; you must build the house.\n\nFancy to yourself a great Troll-garden, such as our forefathers dreamed\nof often fifteen hundred years ago;--a fairy palace, with a fairy garden;\nand all around the primaeval wood.  Inside the Trolls dwell, cunning and\nwicked, watching their fairy treasures, working at their magic forges,\nmaking and making always things rare and strange; and outside, the forest\nis full of children; such children as the world had never seen before,\nbut children still: children in frankness, and purity, and\naffectionateness, and tenderness of conscience, and devout awe of the\nunseen; and children too in fancy, and silliness, and ignorance, and\ncaprice, and jealousy, and quarrelsomeness, and love of excitement and\nadventure, and the mere sport of overflowing animal health.  They play\nunharmed among the forest beasts, and conquer them in their play; but the\nforest is too dull and too poor for them; and they wander to the walls of\nthe Troll-garden, and wonder what is inside.  One can conceive easily for\noneself what from that moment would begin to happen.  Some of the more\nadventurous clamber in.  Some, too, the Trolls steal and carry off into\ntheir palace.  Most never return: but here and there one escapes out\nagain, and tells how the Trolls killed all his comrades: but tells too,\nof the wonders he has seen inside, of shoes of swiftness, and swords of\nsharpness, and caps of darkness; of charmed harps, charmed jewels, and\nabove all of the charmed wine: and after all, the Trolls were very kind\nto him--see what fine clothes they have given him--and he struts about\nawhile among his companions; and then returns, and not alone.  The Trolls\nhave bewitched him, as they will bewitch more.  So the fame of the Troll-\ngarden spreads; and more and more steal in, boys and maidens, and tempt\ntheir comrades over the wall, and tell of the jewels, and the dresses,\nand the wine, the joyous maddening wine, which equals men with gods; and\nforget to tell how the Trolls have bought them, soul as well as body, and\ntaught them to be vain, and lustful, and slavish; and tempted them, too\noften, to sins which have no name.\n\nBut their better nature flashes out at times.  They will not be the\nslaves and brutes in human form, which the evil Trolls would have them;\nand they rebel, and escape, and tell of the horrors of that fair foul\nplace.  And then arises a noble indignation, and war between the Trolls\nand the forest-children.  But still the Trolls can tempt and bribe the\ngreedier or the more vain; and still the wonders inside haunt their\nminds; till it becomes a fixed idea among them all, to conquer the garden\nfor themselves and bedizen themselves in the fine clothes, and drink\ntheir fill of the wine.  Again and again they break in: but the Trolls\ndrive them out, rebuild their walls, keep off those outside by those whom\nthey hold enslaved within; till the boys grow to be youths, and the\nyouths men: and still the Troll-garden is not conquered, and still it\nshall be.  And the Trolls have grown old and weak, and their walls are\ncrumbling away.  Perhaps they may succeed this time--perhaps next.\n\nAnd at last they do succeed--the fairy walls are breached, the fairy\npalace stormed--and the Trolls are crouching at their feet, and now all\nwill be theirs, gold, jewels, dresses, arms, all that the Troll\npossesses--except his cunning.\n\nFor as each struggles into the charmed ground, the spell of the place\nfalls on him.  He drinks the wine, and it maddens him.  He fills his arms\nwith precious trumpery, and another snatches it from his grasp.  Each\nenvies the youth before him, each cries--Why had I not the luck to enter\nfirst?  And the Trolls set them against each other, and split them into\nparties, each mad with excitement, and jealousy, and wine, till, they\nscarce know how, each falls upon his fellow, and all upon those who are\ncrowding in from the forest, and they fight and fight, up and down the\npalace halls, till their triumph has become a very feast of the Lapithae,\nand the Trolls look on, and laugh a wicked laugh, as they tar them on to\nthe unnatural fight, till the gardens are all trampled, the finery torn,\nthe halls dismantled, and each pavement slippery with brothers' blood.\nAnd then, when the wine is gone out of them, the survivors come to their\nsenses, and stare shamefully and sadly round.  What an ugly, desolate,\ntottering ruin the fairy palace has become!  Have they spoilt it\nthemselves? or have the Trolls bewitched it?  And all the fairy\ntreasure--what has become of it? no man knows.  Have they thrown it away\nin their quarrel? have the cunningest hidden it? have the Trolls flown\naway with it, to the fairy land beyond the Eastern mountains? who can\ntell?  Nothing is left but recrimination and remorse.  And they wander\nback again into the forest, away from the doleful ruin, carrion-strewn,\nto sulk each apart over some petty spoil which he has saved from the\ngeneral wreck, hating and dreading each the sound of his neighbour's\nfootstep.\n\nWhat will become of the forest children, unless some kind saint or hermit\ncomes among them, to bind them in the holy bonds of brotherhood and law?\n\nThis is my saga, gentlemen; and it is a true one withal.  For it is\nneither more nor less than the story of the Teutonic tribes, and how they\noverthrew the Empire of Rome.\n\nMenzel, who though he may not rank very high as a historian, has at least\na true German heart, opens his history with a striking passage.\n\n'The sages of the East were teaching wisdom beneath the palms; the\nmerchants of Tyre and Carthage were weighing their heavy anchors, and\nspreading their purple sails for far seas; the Greek was making the earth\nfair by his art, and the Roman founding his colossal empire of force,\nwhile the Teuton sat, yet a child, unknown and naked among the forest\nbeasts: and yet unharmed and in his sport he lorded it over them; for the\nchild was of a royal race, and destined to win glory for all time to\ncome.'\n\nTo the strange and complicated education which God appointed for this\nrace; and by which he has fitted it to become, at least for many\ncenturies henceforth, the ruling race of the world, I wish to call your\nattention in my future lectures.  To-day, I wish to impress strongly on\nyour minds this childishness of our forefathers.  For good or for evil\nthey were great boys; very noble boys; very often very naughty boys--as\nboys with the strength of men might well be.  Try to conceive such to\nyourselves, and you have the old Markman, Allman, Goth, Lombard, Saxon,\nFrank.  And the notion may be more than a mere metaphor.  Races, like\nindividuals, it has been often said, may have their childhood, their\nyouth, their manhood, their old age, and natural death.  It is but a\ntheory--perhaps nothing more.  But at least, our race had its childhood.\nTheir virtues, and their sad failings, and failures, I can understand on\nno other theory.  The nearest type which we can see now is I fancy, the\nEnglish sailor, or the English navvy.  A great, simple, honest, baby--full\nof power and fun, very coarse and plain spoken at times: but if treated\nlike a human being, most affectionate, susceptible, even sentimental and\nsuperstitious; fond of gambling, brute excitement, childish amusements in\nthe intervals of enormous exertion; quarrelsome among themselves, as boys\nare, and with a spirit of wild independence which seems to be strength;\nbut which, till it be disciplined into loyal obedience and\nself-sacrifice, is mere weakness; and beneath all a deep practical\nshrewdness, an indomitable perseverance, when once roused by need.  Such\na spirit as we see to this day in the English sailor--that is the nearest\nanalogue I can find now.  One gets hints here and there of what manner of\nmen they were, from the evil day, when, one hundred and two years before\nChrist, the Kempers and Teutons, ranging over the Alps toward Italy,\n300,000 armed men and 15,000 mailed knights with broad sword and lances,\nand in their helmets the same bulls'-horns, wings, and feathers, which\none sees now in the crests of German princes, stumbled upon Marius and\nhis Romans, and were destroyed utterly, first the men, then the women,\nwho like true women as they were, rather than give up their honour to the\nRomans, hung themselves on the horns of the waggon-oxen, and were\ntrampled to death beneath their feet; and then the very dogs, who fought\non when men and women were all slain--from that fatal day, down to the\nglorious one, when, five hundred years after, Alaric stood beneath the\nwalls of Rome, and to their despairing boast of the Roman numbers,\nanswered, 'Come out to us then, the thicker the hay, the easier\nmowed,'--for five hundred years, I say, the hints of their character are\nall those of a boy-nature.\n\nThey were cruel at times: but so are boys--much more cruel than grown\nmen, I hardly know why--perhaps because they have not felt suffering so\nmuch themselves, and know not how hard it is to bear.  There were\nvarieties of character among them.  The Franks were always false, vain,\ncapricious, selfish, taking part with the Romans whenever their interest\nor vanity was at stake--the worst of all Teutons, though by no means the\nweakest--and a miserable business they made of it in France, for some\nfive hundred years.  The Goths, Salvian says, were the most ignavi of all\nof them; great lazy lourdans; apt to be cruel, too, the Visigoths at\nleast, as their Spanish descendants proved to the horror of the world:\nbut men of honour withal, as those old Spaniards were.  The Saxons were\nfamed for cruelty--I know not why, for our branch of the Saxons has been,\nfrom the beginning of history, the least cruel people in Europe; but they\nhad the reputation--as the Vandals had also--of being the most pure;\nCastitate venerandi.  And among the uncivilized people coldness and\ncruelty go often together.  The less passionate and sensitive the nature,\nthe less open to pity.  The Caribs of the West Indies were famed for\nboth, in contrast to the profligate and gentle inhabitants of Cuba and\nHispaniola; and in double contrast to the Red Indian tribes of North\nAmerica, who combined, from our first acquaintance with them, the two\nvices of cruelty and profligacy, to an extent which has done more to\nextirpate them than all the fire-water of the white man.\n\nBut we must be careful how we compare our forefathers with these, or any\nother savages.  Those who, like Gibbon, have tried to draw a parallel\nbetween the Red Indian and the Primaeval Teuton, have done so at the\nexpense of facts.  First, they have overlooked the broad fact, that while\nthe Red Indians have been, ever since we have known them, a decreasing\nrace, the Teutons have been a rapidly increasing one; in spite of war,\nand famine, and all the ills of a precarious forest life, proving their\nyouthful strength and vitality by a reproduction unparalleled, as far as\nI know, in history, save perhaps by that noble and young race, the\nRussian.  These writers have not known that the Teuton had his definite\nlaws, more simple, doubtless, in the time of Tacitus than in that of\nJustinian, but still founded on abstract principles so deep and broad\nthat they form the groundwork of our English laws and constitution; that\nthe Teuton creed concerning the unseen world, and divine beings, was of a\nloftiness and purity as far above the silly legends of Hiawatha as the\nTeuton morals were above those of a Sioux or a Comanche.  Let any one\nread honest accounts of the Red Indians; let him read Catlin, James,\nLewis and Clarke, Shoolbred; and first and best of all, the old 'Travaile\nin Virginia,' published by the Hakluyt Society: and then let him read the\nGermania of Tacitus, and judge for himself.  For my part, I believe that\nif Gibbon was right, and if our forefathers in the German forests had\nbeen like Powhattan's people as we found them in the Virginian forests,\nthe Romans would not have been long in civilizing us off the face of the\nearth.\n\nNo.  All the notes which Tacitus gives us are notes of a young and strong\nrace; unconscious of its own capabilities, but possessing such\ncapabilities that the observant Romans saw at once with dread and awe\nthat they were face to face with such a people as they had never met\nbefore; that in their hands, sooner or later, might be the fate of Rome.\nMad Caracalla, aping the Teuton dress and hair, listening in dread to the\nsongs of the Allman Alrunas, telling the Teutons that they ought to come\nover the Rhine and destroy the empire, and then, murdering the\ninterpreters, lest they should repeat his words, was but babbling out in\nan insane shape the thought which was brooding in the most far-seeing\nRoman minds.  He felt that they could have done the deed; and he felt\nrightly, madman as he was.  They could have done it then, if physical\npower and courage were all that was needed, in the days of the Allman\nwar.  They could have done it a few years before, when the Markmen fought\nMarcus Aurelius Antoninus; on the day when the Caesar, at the advice of\nhis augurs, sent two lions to swim across the Danube as a test of\nvictory; and the simple Markmen took them for big dogs, and killed them\nwith their clubs.  From that day, indeed, the Teutons began to conquer\nslowly, but surely.  Though Antoninus beat the Markmen on the Danube, and\nrecovered 100,000 Roman prisoners, yet it was only by the help of the\nVandals; from that day the empire was doomed, and the Teutons only kept\nat bay by bribing one tribe to fight another, or by enlisting their more\nadventurous spirits into the Roman legions, to fight against men of their\nown blood;--a short-sighted and suicidal policy; for by that very method\nthey were teaching the Teuton all he needed, the discipline and the\nmilitary science of the Roman.\n\nBut the Teutons might have done it a hundred years before that, when Rome\nwas in a death agony, and Vitellius and Vespasian were struggling for the\npurple, and Civilis and the fair Velleda, like Barak and Deborah of old,\nraised the Teuton tribes.  They might have done it before that again,\nwhen Hermann slew Varus and his legions in the Teutoburger Wald; or\nbefore that again, when the Kempers and Teutons burst over the Alps, to\nmadden themselves with the fatal wines of the rich south.  And why did\nthe Teutons _not_ do it?  Because they were boys fighting against cunning\nmen.  Boiorich, the young Kemper, riding down to Marius' camp, to bid him\nfix the place and time of battle--for the Teuton thought it mean to use\nsurprises and stratagems, or to conquer save in fair and open fight--is\nthe type of the Teuton hero; and one which had no chance in a struggle\nwith the cool, false, politic Roman, grown grey in the experience of the\nforum and of the camp, and still as physically brave as his young enemy.\nBecause, too, there was no unity among them; no feeling that they were\nbrethren of one blood.  Had the Teuton tribes, at any one of the great\ncrises I have mentioned, and at many a crisis afterwards, united for but\nthree years, under the feeling of a common blood, language, interest,\ndestiny, Rome would have perished.  But they could not learn that lesson.\nThey could not put aside their boyish quarrels.\n\nThey never learnt the lesson till after their final victory, when the\nGospel of Christ--of a Being to whom they all owed equal allegiance, in\nwhose sight they were all morally equal--came to unite them into a\nChristendom.\n\nAnd it was well that they did not learn it sooner.  Well for them and for\nthe world, that they did not unite on any false ground of interest or\nambition, but had to wait for the true ground of unity, the knowledge of\nthe God-man, King of all nations upon earth.\n\nHad they destroyed Rome sooner, what would not they have lost?  What\nwould not the world have lost?  Christianity would have been stifled in\nits very cradle; and with Christianity all chance--be sure of it--of\ntheir own progress.  Roman law, order, and discipline, the very things\nwhich they needed to acquire by a contact of five hundred years, would\nhave been swept away.  All classic literature and classic art, which they\nlearnt to admire with an almost superstitious awe, would have perished\nlikewise.  Greek philosophy, the germs of physical science, and all that\nwe owe to the ancients, would have perished; and we should have truly had\nan invasion of the barbarians, followed by truly dark ages, in which\nEurope would have had to begin all anew, without the help of the\ngenerations which had gone before.\n\nTherefore it was well as it was, and God was just and merciful to them\nand to the human race.  They had a glorious destiny, and glorious powers\nwherewith to fulfil it: but they had, as every man and people has, before\nwhom there is a noble future, to be educated by suffering.  There was\nbefore them a terrible experience of sorrow and disappointment, sin and\nblood, by which they gained the first consciousness of what they could do\nand what they could not.  Like Adam of old, like every man unto this day,\nthey ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and were driven\nout of the paradise of unconsciousness; had to begin again sadder and\nwiser men, and eat their bread in the sweat of their brow; and so to\nrise, after their fall, into a nobler, wiser, more artificial, and\ntherefore more truly human and divine life, than that from which they had\nat first fallen, when they left their German wilds.\n\nOne does not, of course, mean the parallel to fit in all details.  The\nfall of the Teuton from the noble simplicity in which Tacitus beheld and\nhonoured him, was a work of four centuries; perhaps it was going on in\nTacitus' own time.  But the culminating point was the century which saw\nItaly conquered, and Rome sacked, by Visigoth, by Ostrogoth, by Vandal,\ntill nothing was left save fever-haunted ruins.  Then the ignorant and\ngreedy child, who had been grasping so long after the fair apples of\nSodom, clutched them once and for all, and found them turn to ashes in\nhis hands.\n\nYes--it is thus that I wish you to look at the Invasion of the\nBarbarians, Immigration of the Teutons, or whatsoever name you may call\nit.  Before looking at questions of migration, of ethnology, of laws, and\nof classes, look first at the thing itself; and see with sacred pity--and\nawe, one of the saddest and grandest tragedies ever performed on earth.\nPoor souls!  And they were so simple withal.  One pities them, as one\npities a child who steals apples, and makes himself sick with them after\nall.  It is not the enormous loss of life which is to me the most tragic\npart of the story; it is that very simplicity of the Teutons.  Bloodshed\nis a bad thing, certainly; but after all nature is prodigal of human\nlife--killing her twenty thousand and her fifty thousand by a single\nearthquake; and as for death in battle--I sometimes am tempted to think,\nhaving sat by many death beds, that our old forefathers may have been\nright, and that death in battle may be a not unenviable method of passing\nout of this troublesome world.  Besides, we have no right to blame those\nold Teutons, while we are killing every year more of her Majesty's\nsubjects by preventible disease, than ever they killed in their bloodiest\nbattle.  Let us think of that, and mend that, ere we blame the old German\nheroes.  No, there are more pitiful tragedies than any battlefield can\nshew; and first among them, surely, is the disappointment of young hopes,\nthe degradation of young souls.\n\nOne pities them, I say.  And they pitied themselves.  Remorse, shame,\nsadness, mark the few legends and songs of the days which followed the\nfall of Rome.  They had done a great work.  They had destroyed a mighty\ntyranny; they had parted between them the spoils wrung from all the\nnations; they had rid the earth of a mighty man-devouring ogre, whose\nhands had been stretched out for centuries over all the earth, dragging\nall virgins to his den, butchering and torturing thousands for his sport;\nfoul, too, with crimes for which their language, like our own (thank God)\nhas scarcely found a name.  Babylon the Great, drunken with the blood of\nthe saints, had fallen at last before the simple foresters of the north:\nbut if it looks a triumph to us, it looked not such to them.  They could\nonly think how they had stained their hands in their brothers' blood.\nThey had got the fatal Nibelungen hoard: but it had vanished between\ntheir hands, and left them to kill each other, till none was left.\n\nYou know the Nibelungen Lied?  That expresses, I believe, the key-note of\nthe old Teuton's heart, after his work was done.  Siegfried murdered by\nhis brother-in-law; fair Chriemhild turned into an avenging fury; the\nheroes hewing each other down, they scarce know why, in Hunnish Etzel's\nhall, till Hagen and Gunther stand alone; Dietrich of Bern going in, to\nbind the last surviving heroes; Chriemhild shaking Hagen's gory head in\nGunther's face, himself hewed down by the old Hildebrand, till nothing is\nleft but stark corpses and vain tears:--while all the while the\nNibelungen hoard, the cause of all the woe, lies drowned in the deep\nRhine until the judgment day.--What is all this, but the true tale of the\nfall of Rome, of the mad quarrels of the conquering Teutons?  The names\nare confused, mythic; the dates and places all awry: but the tale is\ntrue--too true.  Mutato nomine fabula narratur.  Even so they went on,\nkilling, till none were left.  Deeds as strange, horrible, fratricidal,\nwere done, again and again, not only between Frank and Goth, Lombard and\nGepid, but between Lombard and Lombard, Frank and Frank.  Yes, they were\ndrunk with each other's blood, those elder brethren of ours.  Let us\nthank God that we did not share their booty, and perish, like them, from\nthe touch of the fatal Nibelungen hoard.  Happy for us Englishmen, that\nwe were forced to seek our adventures here, in this lonely isle; to turn\naside from the great stream of Teutonic immigration; and settle here,\neach man on his forest-clearing, to till the ground in comparative peace,\nkeeping unbroken the old Teutonic laws, unstained the old Teutonic faith\nand virtue, cursed neither with poverty nor riches, but fed with food\nsufficient for us.  To us, indeed, after long centuries, peace brought\nsloth, and sloth foreign invaders and bitter woes: but better so, than\nthat we should have cast away alike our virtue and our lives, in that mad\nquarrel over the fairy gold of Rome.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE II--THE DYING EMPIRE.\n\n\nIt is not for me to trace the rise, or even the fall of the Roman Empire.\nThat would be the duty rather of a professor of ancient history, than of\nmodern.  All I need do is to sketch, as shortly as I can, the state in\nwhich the young world found the old, when it came in contact with it.\n\nThe Roman Empire, toward the latter part of the fourth century, was in\nmuch the same condition as the Chinese or the Turkish Empire in our own\ndays.  Private morality (as Juvenal and Persius will tell you), had\nvanished long before.  Public morality had, of course, vanished likewise.\nThe only powers really recognised were force and cunning.  The only aim\nwas personal enjoyment.  The only God was the Divus Caesar, the imperial\ndemigod, whose illimitable brute force gave him illimitable powers of\nself-enjoyment, and made him thus the paragon and ideal of humanity, whom\nall envied, flattered, hated, and obeyed.  The palace was a sink of\ncorruption, where eunuchs, concubines, spies, informers, freedmen,\nadventurers, struggled in the basest plots, each for his share of the\npublic plunder.  The senate only existed to register the edicts of their\ntyrant, and if need be, destroy each other, or any one else, by judicial\nmurders, the willing tools of imperial cruelty.  The government was\nadministered (at least since the time of Diocletian) by an official\nbureaucracy, of which Professor Goldwin Smith well says, 'the earth\nswarmed with the consuming hierarchy of extortion, so that it was said\nthat they who received taxes were more than those who paid them.'  The\nfree middle class had disappeared, or lingered in the cities, too proud\nto labour, fed on government bounty, and amused by government spectacles.\nWith them, arts and science had died likewise.  Such things were left to\nslaves, and became therefore, literally, servile imitations of the past.\nWhat, indeed, was not left to slaves?  Drawn without respect of rank, as\nwell as of sex and age, from every nation under heaven by an organized\nslave-trade, to which our late African one was but a tiny streamlet\ncompared with a mighty river; a slave-trade which once bought 10,000\nhuman beings in Delos in a single day; the 'servorum nationes' were the\nonly tillers of the soil, of those 'latifundia' or great estates, 'quae\nperdidere Romam.'  Denied the rights of marriage, the very name of\nhumanity; protected by no law, save the interest or caprice of their\nmasters; subjected, for slight offences, to cruel torments, they were\nbutchered by thousands in the amphitheatres to make a Roman holiday, or\nwore out their lives in 'ergastula' or barracks, which were dens of\ndarkness and horror.  Their owners, as 'senatores,' 'clarissimi,' or at\nleast 'curiales,' spent their lives in the cities, luxurious and\neffeminate, and left their slaves to the tender mercy of 'villici,'\nstewards and gang-drivers, who were themselves slaves likewise.\n\nMore pampered, yet more degraded, were the crowds of wretched beings, cut\noff from all the hopes of humanity, who ministered to the wicked\npleasures of their masters, even in the palaces of nominally Christian\nemperors--but over that side of Roman slavery I must draw a veil, only\nsaying, that the atrocities of the Romans toward their slaves--especially\nof this last and darkest kind--notably drew down on them the just wrath\nand revenge of those Teutonic nations, from which so many of their slaves\nwere taken. {19}\n\nAnd yet they called themselves Christians--to whom it had been said, 'Be\nnot deceived, God is not mocked.  For these things cometh the wrath of\nGod on the children of disobedience.'  And the wrath did come.\n\nIf such were the morals of the Empire, what was its political state?  One\nof complete disorganization.  The only uniting bond left seems to have\nbeen that of the bureaucracy, the community of tax-gatherers, who found\nit on the whole safer and more profitable to pay into the imperial\ntreasury a portion of their plunder, than to keep it all themselves.  It\nstood by mere vi inertiae, just because it happened to be there, and\nthere was nothing else to put in its place.  Like an old tree whose every\nroot is decayed, it did not fall, simply because the storm had not yet\ncome.  Storms, indeed, had come; but they had been partial and local.  One\ncannot look into the pages of Gibbon, without seeing that the normal\ncondition of the empire was one of revolt, civil war,\ninvasion--Pretenders, like Carausius and Allectus in Britain, setting\nthemselves up as emperors for awhile--Bands of brigands, like the Bagaudae\nof Gaul, and the Circumcelliones of Africa, wandering about, desperate\nwith hunger and revenge, to slay and pillage--Teutonic tribes making\nforays on the frontier, enlisted into the Roman armies, and bought off,\nor hired to keep back the tribes behind them, and perish by their\nbrethren's swords.\n\nWhat kept the empire standing, paradoxical as it may seem, was its own\ninnate weakness.  From within, at least, it could not be overthrown.  The\nmasses were too crushed to rise.  Without unity, purpose, courage, they\nsubmitted to inevitable misery as to rain and thunder.  At most they\ndestroyed their own children from poverty, or, as in Egypt, fled by\nthousands into the caves and quarries, and turned monks and hermits;\nwhile the upper classes, equally without unity or purpose, said each to\nhimself, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'\n\nThe state of things at Rome, and after the rise of Byzantium under\nConstantine at Byzantium likewise, was one altogether fantastic,\nabnormal, utterly unlike anything that we have seen, or can imagine to\nourselves without great effort.  I know no better method of illustrating\nit, than quoting, from Mr. Sheppard's excellent book, _The Fall of Rome\nand the Rise of New Nationalities_, a passage in which he transfers the\nwhole comi-tragedy from Italy of old to England in 1861.\n\n'I have not thought it necessary to give a separate and distinct reply to\nthe theory of Mr. Congreve, that Roman Imperialism was the type of all\ngood government, and a desirable precedent for ourselves.  Those who feel\nany penchant for the notion, I should strongly recommend to read the\nanswer of Professor G. Smith, in the _Oxford Essays_ for 1856, which is\nas complete and crushing as that gentleman's performances usually are.\nBut in order to convey to the uninitiated some idea of the state of\nsociety under Caesarian rule, and which a Caesarian rule, so far as mere\ngovernment is concerned, if it does not produce, has never shewn any\ntendency to prevent, let us give reins to imagination for a moment, and\npicture to ourselves a few social and political analogies in our own\nEngland of the nineteenth century.\n\n'An entire revolution has taken place in our principles, manners, and\nform of government.  Parliaments, meetings, and all the ordinary\nexpressions of the national will, are no longer in existence.  A free\npress has shared their fate.  There is no accredited organ of public\nopinion; indeed there is no public opinion to record.  Lords and Commons\nhave been swept away, though a number of the richest old gentlemen in\nLondon meet daily at Westminster to receive orders from Buckingham\nPalace.  But at the palace itself has broken out one of those sanguinary\nconspiracies which have of late become unceasing.  The last heir of the\nhouse of Brunswick is lying dead with a dagger in his heart, and\neverything is in frightful confusion.  The armed force of the capital are\nof course \"masters of the situation,\" and the Guards, after a tumultuous\nmeeting at Windsor or Knightsbridge, have sold the throne to Baron\nRothschild, for a handsome donation of 25 pounds a-piece.  Lord Clyde,\nhowever, we may be sure, is not likely to stand this, and in a few months\nwill be marching upon London at the head of the Indian Army.  In the mean\ntime the Channel Fleet has declared for its own commander, has seized\nupon Plymouth and Portsmouth, and intends to starve the metropolis by\nstopping the imports of \"bread-stuffs\" at the mouth of the Thames.  And\nthis has become quite possible; for half the population of London, under\nthe present state of things, subsist upon free distributions of corn\ndispensed by the occupant of the throne for the time being.  But a more\nfatal change than even this has come over the population of the capital\nand of the whole country.  The free citizens and 'prentices of London;\nthe sturdy labourers of Dorsetshire and the eastern counties; and the\nskilful artizans of Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham; the mariners\nand shipwrights of Liverpool, have been long ago drafted into marching\nregiments, and have left their bones to bleach beneath Indian suns and\nPolar snows.  Their place has been supplied by countless herds of negro\nslaves, who till the fields and crowd the workshops of our towns, to the\nentire exclusion of free labour; for the free population, or rather the\nmiserable relics of them, disdain all manual employment: they divide\ntheir time between starvation and a degrading debauchery, the means for\nwhich are sedulously provided by the government.  The time-honoured\ninstitutions of the bull-bait, the cockpit, and the ring, are in daily\noperation, under the most distinguished patronage.  Hyde Park has been\nconverted into a gigantic arena, where criminals from Newgate \"set-to\"\nwith the animals from the Zoological Gardens.  Every fortnight there is a\nDerby Day, and the whole population pour into the Downs with frantic\nexcitement, leaving the city to the slaves.  And then the moral condition\nof this immense mass!  Of the doings about the palace we should be sorry\nto speak.  But the lady patronesses of Almack's still more assiduously\npatronize the prize-fights, and one of them has been seen within the\nropes, in battle array, by the side of Sayers himself.  No tongue may\ntell the orgies enacted, with the aid of French cooks, Italian singers,\nand foreign artists of all sorts, in the gilded saloons of Park Lane and\nMayfair.  Suffice to say, that in them the worst passions of human nature\nhave full swing, unmodified by any thought of human or divine restraints,\nand only dashed a little now and then by the apprehension that the slaves\nmay rise, and make a clean sweep of the metropolis with fire and steel.\nBut _n'importe_--_Vive la bagatelle_!  Mario has just been appointed\nprime minister, and has made a chorus singer from the Opera Duke of\nMiddlesex and Governor-General of India.  All wise men and all good men\ndespair of the state, but they are not permitted to say anything, much\nless to act.  Mr. Disraeli lost his head a few days ago; Lords Palmerston\nand Derby lie in the Tower under sentence of death; Lord Brougham, the\nArchbishop of Canterbury, and Mr. Gladstone, opened their veins and died\nin a warm bath last week.  Foreign relations will make a still greater\ndemand on the reader's imagination.  We must conceive of England no\nlonger as\n\n   \"A precious stone set in the silver sea,\n   Which serves it in the office of a wall,\n   Or as a moat defensive of a house.\"\n\nbut rather as open to the inroad of every foe whom her aggressive and\ncolonizing genius has provoked.  The red man of the West, the Caffre, the\nSikh, and the Sepoy, Chinese braves, and fierce orientals of all sorts,\nare hovering on her frontiers in \"numbers numberless,\" as the flakes of\nsnow in the northern winter.  They are not the impotent enemy which we\nknow, but vigorous races, supplied from inexhaustible founts of\npopulation, and animated by an insatiate appetite for the gold and\nsilver, purple and fine linen, rich meats and intoxicating drinks of our\neffete civilization.  And we can no longer oppose them with those\nvictorious legions which have fought and conquered in all regions of the\nworld.  The men of Waterloo and Inkermann are no more.  We are compelled\nto recruit our armies from those very tribes before whose swords we are\nreceding!\n\n'Doubtless the ordinary reader will believe this picture to be\novercharged, drawn with manifest exaggeration, and somewhat questionable\ntaste.  _Every single statement which it contains_ may be paralleled by\nthe circumstances and events of the decadence of the Roman Empire.  The\nanalogous situation was with the subjects of this type of all good\ngovernment, _always a possible_, often an actual, state of things.  We\nthink this disposes of the theory of Mr. Congreve.  With it may\nadvantageously be contrasted the opinion of a man of more statesman-like\nmind.  \"The benefits of despotism are short-lived; it poisons the very\nsprings which it lays open; if it display a merit, it is an exceptional\none; if a virtue, it is created of circumstances; and when once this\nbetter hour has passed away, all the vices of its nature break forth with\nredoubled violence, and weigh down society in every direction.\"  So\nwrites M. Guizot.  Is it the language of prophecy as well as of personal\nexperience?'\n\nMr. Sheppard should have added, to make the picture complete, that the\nIrish have just established popery across St. George's Channel, by the\naid of re-immigrants from America; that Free Kirk and National Kirk are\ncarrying on a sanguinary civil war in Scotland; that the Devonshire\nWesleyans have just sacked Exeter cathedral, and murdered the Bishop at\nthe altar, while the Bishop of London, supported by the Jews and the rich\nchurchmen (who are all mixed up in financial operations with Baron\nRothschild) has just commanded all Dissenters to leave the metropolis\nwithin three days, under pain of death.\n\nI must add yet one more feature to this fearful, but accurate picture,\nand say how, a few generations forward, an even uglier thing would be\nseen.  The English aristocracy would have been absorbed by foreign\nadventurers.  The grandchildren of these slaves and mercenaries would be\nholding the highest offices in the state and the army, naming themselves\nafter the masters who had freed them, or disguising their barbarian names\nby English endings.  The De Fung-Chowvilles would be Dukes, the Little-\ngrizzly-bear-Joe-Smiths Earls, and the Fitz-Stanleysons, descended from a\nking of the gipsies who enlisted to avoid transportation, and in due time\nbecame Commander-in-Chief, would rule at Knowsley in place of the Earl of\nDerby, having inherited the same by the summary process of assassination.\nBeggars on horseback, only too literally; married, most of them, to\nEnglishwomen of the highest rank; but looking on England merely as a\nprey; without patriotism, without principle; they would destroy the old\naristocracy by legal murders, grind the people, fight against their yet\nbarbarian cousins outside, as long as they were in luck: but the moment\nthe luck turned against them, would call in those barbarian cousins to\nhelp them, and invade England every ten years with heathen hordes, armed\nno more with tulwar and matchlock, but with Enfield rifle and Whitworth\ncannon.  And that, it must be agreed, would be about the last phase of\nthe British empire.  If you will look through the names which figure in\nthe high places of the Roman empire, during the fourth and fifth\ncenturies, you will see how few of them are really Roman.  If you will\ntry to investigate, not their genealogies--for they have none--not a\ngrandfather among them--but the few facts of their lives which have come\ndown to us; you will see how that Nemesis had fallen on her which must at\nlast fall on every nation which attempts to establish itself on slavery\nas a legal basis.  Rome had become the slave of her own slaves.\n\nIt is at this last period, the point when Rome has become the slave of\nher own slaves, that I take up the story of our Teutonic race.\n\nI do not think that anyone will call either Mr. Sheppard's statements, or\nmine, exaggerated, who knows the bitter complaints of the wickedness and\nfolly of the time, which are to be found in the writings of the Emperor\nJulian.  Pedant and apostate as he was, he devoted his short life to one\ngreat idea, the restoration of the Roman Empire to what it had been (as\nhe fancied) in the days of the virtuous stoic Emperors of the second\ncentury.  He found his dream a dream, owing to the dead heap of\nfrivolity, sensuality, brutality, utter unbelief, not merely in the dead\nPagan gods whom he vainly tried to restore, but in any god at all, as a\nliving, ruling, judging, rewarding, punishing power.\n\nNo one, again, will call these statements exaggerated who knows the Roman\nhistory of his faithful servant and soldier, Ammianus Marcellinus, and\nespecially the later books of it, in which he sets forth the state of the\nEmpire after Julian's death, under Jovian, Procopius, Valentinian, (who\nkept close to his bed-chamber two she-bears who used to eat men, one\ncalled Golden Camel, and the other Innocence--which latter, when she had\ndevoured a sufficiency of his living victims, he set free in the forests\nas a reward for her services--a brutal tyrant, whose only virtue seems to\nhave been his chastity); and Valens, the shameless extortioner who\nperished in that great battle of Adrianople, of which more hereafter.  The\nlast five remaining books of the honest soldier's story are a tissue of\nhorrors, from reading which one turns away as from a slaughter-house or a\nwitches' sabbath.\n\nNo one, again, will think these statements exaggerated who knows\nSalvian's De Gubernatione Dei.  It has been always and most justly held\nin high esteem, as one great authority of the state of Gaul when\nconquered by the Franks and Goths and Vandals.\n\nSalvian was a Christian gentleman, born somewhere near Treves.  He\nmarried a Pagan lady of Cologne, converted her, had by her a daughter,\nand then persuaded her to devote herself to celibacy, while he did the\nlike.  His father-in-law, Hypatius, quarrelled with him on this account;\nand the letter in which he tries to soothe the old man is still extant, a\ncurious specimen of the style of cultivated men in that day.  Salvian\nthen went down to the south of France and became a priest at Marseilles,\nand tutor to the sons of Eucherius, the Bishop of Lyons.  Eucherius,\nhimself a good man, speaks in terms of passionate admiration of Salvian,\nhis goodness, sanctity, learning, talents.  Gennadius (who describes him\nas still living when he wrote, about 490) calls him among other\nencomiums, the Master of Bishops; and both mention familiarly this very\nwork, by which he became notorious in his own day, and which he wrote\nabout 450 or 455, during the invasion of the Britons.  So that we may\ntrust fully that we have hold of an authentic contemporaneous work,\nwritten by a good man and true.\n\nLet me first say a few words on the fact of his having--as many good men\ndid then--separated from his wife in order to lead what was called a\nreligious life.  It has a direct bearing on the History of those days.\nOne must not praise him because he (in common with all Christians of his\nday) held, no doubt, the belief that marriage was a degradation in\nitself; that though the Church might mend it somewhat by exalting it into\na sacrament, still, the less of a bad thing the better:--a doctrine\nagainst which one need not use (thank God) in England, the same language\nwhich Michelet has most justly used in France.  We, being safe from the\npoison, can afford to talk of it calmly.  But I boldly assert, that few\nmore practically immoral doctrines than that of the dignity of celibacy\nand the defilement of marriage (which was the doctrine of all Christian\ndevotees for 1000 years) have, as far as I know, ever been preached to\nman.  That is a strong statement.  It will be answered perhaps, by the\npatent fact, that during those very 1000 years the morality of Europe\nimproved more, and more rapidly, than it had ever done before.  I know\nit; and I thank God for it.  But I adhere to my statement, and rejoin--And\nhow much more rapidly have the morals of Europe improved, since that\ndoctrine has been swept away; and woman, and the love of woman, have been\nrestored to their rightful place in the education of man?\n\nBut if we do not praise Salvian, we must not blame him, or any one else\nwho meant to be an honest and good man.  Such did not see to what their\ncelibate notions would lead.  If they had, we must believe that they\nwould have acted differently.  And what is more, their preference for\ncelibacy was not fancy, but common sense of a very lofty kind.  Be sure\nthat when two middle-aged Christian people consider it best to part, they\nhave very good reasons for such a solemn step, at which only boys or\ncynics will laugh.  And the reasons, in Salvian's case, and many more in\nhis day, are patent to common human understanding.  Do not fancy that he\nhad any private reason, such as we should very fairly assign now: public\nreasons, and those, such as God grant no living man may see, caused wise\nmen to thank God that they were not burdened with wife and child.\nRemember the years in which Salvian lived--from 416 perhaps to 490.  It\nwas a day of the Lord such as Joel saw; 'a day of clouds and of thick\ndarkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains; a great people and\nstrong; there had not been ever the like, neither should be any more\nafter it: the land was a garden of Eden before them, and behind them a\ndesolate wilderness: Yea, and nothing should escape them.'  All things\nwere going to wrack; the country was overrun by foreign invaders;\nbankruptcy, devastation, massacre, and captivity were for perhaps 100\nyears the normal state of Gaul, and of most other countries besides.  I\nhave little doubt that Salvian was a prudent man, when he thought fit to\nbring no more human beings into the world.  That is an ugly thought--I\ntrust that you feel how ugly, unnatural, desperate a thought it is.  If\nyou do not, think over it till you do, till it frightens you.  You will\ngain a great step thereby in human sympathy, and therefore in the\nunderstanding of history.  For many times, and in many places, men have\nsaid, rightly or wrongly, 'It is better to leave none behind me like\nmyself.  The miseries of life (and of what comes after this life) are\ngreater than its joys.  I commit an act of cruelty by bringing a fresh\nhuman being into the world.'  I wish you to look at that thought\nsteadily, and apply it for yourselves.  It has many applications: and has\ntherefore been a very common one.\n\nBut put to yourselves--it is too painful for me to put to you--the case\nof a married gentleman who sees his country gradually devastated and\nbrought to utter ruin by foreign invaders; and who feels--as poor Salvian\nfelt, that there is no hope or escape; that the misery is merited,\ndeserved, fairly _earned_ (for that is the true meaning of those words),\nand therefore must come.  Conceive him seeing around him estates\ndestroyed, farms burnt, ladies and gentlemen, his own friends and\nrelations, reduced in an hour to beggary, plundered, stript, driven off\nin gangs--I do not choose to finish the picture: but ask yourselves,\nwould an honourable man wish to bring sons--much more daughters--into the\nworld to endure that?\n\nPut yourselves in Salvian's place.  Forget for a few minutes that you are\nEnglishmen, the freest and bravest nation upon earth, strong in all that\ngives real strength, and with a volunteer army which is now formidable by\nnumbers and courage--which, did the terrible call come, might be\nincreased ten times in as many months.  Forget all that awhile; and put\nyourselves in Salvian's place, the gentleman of Gaul, while Franks and\nGoths, Burgunds and Vandals were sweeping, wave after wave, over that\nlovely land; and judge him rationally, and talk as little as possible of\nhis superstition, and as much as possible of his human feeling, prudence,\nself-control, and common sense.  Believe me, neither celibacy, nor any\nother seemingly unnatural superstition would have held its ground for a\ngeneration if there had not been some practical considerations of common\nsense to back them.  We wonder why men in old times went into\nmonasteries.  The simplest answer is, common sense sent them thither.\nThey were tired of being the slaves of their own passions; they were\ntired of killing, and of running the chance of being killed.  They saw\nsociety, the whole world, going to wrack, as they thought, around them:\nwhat could they do better, than see that their own characters, morals,\nimmortal souls did not go to wrack with the rest.  We wonder why women,\nespecially women of rank, went into convents; why, as soon as a community\nof monks was founded, a community of nuns sprung up near them.  The\nsimplest answer is, common sense sent them thither.  The men, especially\nof the upper fighting classes, were killed off rapidly; the women were\nnot killed off, and a large number always remained, who, if they had\nwished to marry, could not.  What better for them than to seek in\nconvents that peace which this world could not give?\n\nThey may have mixed up with that simple wish for peace the notion of\nbeing handmaids of God, brides of Christ, and so forth.  Be it so.  Let\nus instead of complaining, thank heaven that there was some motive,\nwhether quite right or not, to keep alive in them self-respect, and the\nfeeling that they were not altogether useless and aimless on earth.  Look\nat the question in this light, and you will understand two things; first,\nhow horrible the times were, and secondly, why there grew up in the early\nmiddle age a passion for celibacy.\n\nSalvian, in a word, had already grown up to manhood and reason, when he\nsaw a time come to his native country, in which were fulfilled, with\nfearful exactness, the words of the prophet Isaiah:--\n\n   'Behold, the Lord maketh the land empty, and maketh it waste, and\n   turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.\n   And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the\n   slave, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as\n   with the seller, so with the buyer; as with the lender, so with the\n   borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to\n   him.  The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled; for the\n   Lord hath spoken this word.'\n\nAnd Salvian desired to know the reason why the Lord had spoken that word,\nand read his Bible till he found out, and wrote thereon his book De\nGubernatione Dei, of the government of God; and a very noble book it is.\nHe takes his stand on the ground of Scripture, with which he shews an\nadmirable acquaintance.  The few good were expecting the end of the\nworld.  Christ was coming to put an end to all these horrors: but why did\nhe delay his coming?  The many weak were crying that God had given up the\nworld; that Christ had deserted his Church, and delivered over Christians\nto the cruelties of heathen and Arian barbarians.  The many bad were\nopenly blaspheming, throwing off in despair all faith, all bonds of\nreligion, all common decency, and crying, Let us eat and drink, for to-\nmorrow we die.  Salvian answers them like an old Hebrew prophet: 'The\nLord's arm is not shortened.  The Lord's eyes are not closed.  The Lord\nis still as near as ever.  He is governing the world as He has always\ngoverned it: by the everlasting moral laws, by which the wages of sin are\ndeath.  Your iniquities have withheld good things from you.  You have\nearned exactly what God has paid you.  Yourselves are your own\npunishment.  You have been wicked men, and therefore weak men; your own\nvices, and not the Goths, have been your true conquerors.'  As I said in\nmy inaugural lecture--that is after all the true theory of history.  Men\nmay forget it in piping times of peace.  God grant that in the dark hour\nof adversity, God may always raise up to them a prophet, like good old\nSalvian, to preach to them once again the everlasting judgments of God;\nand teach them that not faulty constitutions, faulty laws, faulty\ncircumstances of any kind, but the faults of their own hearts and lives,\nare the causes of their misery.\n\nM. Guizot, in his elaborate work on the History of Civilization in\nFrance, has a few curious pages, on the causes of the decline of civil\nsociety in Roman Gaul, and its consequent weakness and ruin.  He tells\nyou how the Senators or Clarissimi did not constitute a true aristocracy,\nable to lead and protect the people, being at the mercy of the Emperor,\nand nominated and removed at his pleasure.  How the Curiales, or wealthy\nmiddle class, who were bound by law to fulfil all the municipal offices,\nand were responsible for the collection of the revenue, found their\nresponsibilities so great, that they by every trick in their power,\navoided office.  How, as M. Guizot well puts it, the central despotism of\nRome stript the Curiales of all they earned, to pay its own functionaries\nand soldiers; and gave them the power of appointing magistrates, who were\nonly after all the imperial agents of that despotism, for whose sake they\nrobbed their fellow-citizens.  How the plebs, comprising the small\ntradesmen and free artizans, were utterly unable to assert their own\nopinions or rights.  How the slave population, though their condition was\nmuch improved, constituted a mere dead weight of helpless brutality.\n\nAnd then he says, that the Roman Empire was dying.  Very true: but often\nas he quotes Salvian, he omits always to tell us what Roman society was\ndying of.  Salvian says, that it was dying of vice.  Not of bad laws and\nclass arrangements, but of bad men.  M. Guizot belongs to a school which\nis apt to impute human happiness and prosperity too exclusively to the\npolitical constitution under which they may happen to live,\nirrespectively of the morality of the people themselves.  From that, the\nconstitutionalist school, there has been of late a strong reaction, the\nhighest exponent, nay the very coryphaeus of which is Mr. Carlyle.  He\nundervalues, even despises, the influence of laws and constitutions: with\nhim private virtue, from which springs public virtue, is the first and\nsole cause of national prosperity.  My inaugural lecture has told you how\ndeeply I sympathize with his view--taking my stand, as Mr. Carlyle does,\non the Hebrew prophets.\n\nThere is, nevertheless, a side of truth in the constitutionalist view,\nwhich Mr. Carlyle, I think, overlooks.  A bad political constitution does\nproduce poverty and weakness: but only in as far as it tends to produce\nmoral evil; to make men bad.  That it can help to do.  It can put a\npremium on vice, on falsehood, on peculation, on laziness, on ignorance;\nand thus tempt the mass to moral degradation, from the premier to the\nslave.  Russia has been, for two centuries now but too patent a proof of\nthe truth of this assertion.  But even in this case, the moral element is\nthe most important, and just the one which is overlooked.  To have good\nlaws, M. Guizot is apt to forget, you must first have good men to make\nthem; and second, you must have good men to carry them out, after they\nare made.  Bad men can abuse the best of laws, the best of constitutions.\nLook at the working of our parliaments during the reigns of William III\nand Anne, and see how powerless good constitutions are, when the men who\nwork them are false and venal.  Look, on the other hand, at the Roman\nEmpire from the time of Vespasian to that of the Antonines, and see how\nwell even a bad constitution will succeed, when good men are working it.\n\nBad laws, I say, will work tolerably under good men, if fitted to the\nexisting circumstances by men of the world, as all Roman laws were.  If\nthey had not been such, how was the Roman Empire, at least in its first\nyears, a blessing to the safety, prosperity, and wealth of every country\nit enslaved?  But when defective Roman laws began to be worked by bad\nmen, and that for 200 years, then indeed came times of evil.  Let us\ntake, then, Salvian's own account of the cause of Roman decay.  He, an\neye-witness, imputes it all to the morals of Roman citizens.  They were,\naccording to him, of the very worst.  To the general dissoluteness he\nattributes, in plain words, the success of the Frank and Gothic invaders.\nAnd the facts which he gives, and which there is no reason to doubt, are\nquite enough to prove him in the right.  Every great man's house, he\nsays, was a sink of profligacy.  The women slaves were at the mercy of\ntheir master; and the slaves copied his morals among themselves.  It is\nan ugly picture: but common sense will tell us, if we but think a little,\nthat such will, and must, be the case in slave-holding countries,\nwherever Christianity is not present in its purest and strongest form, to\ncontrol the passions of arbitrary power.\n\nBut there was not merely profligacy among these Gauls.  That alone would\nnot have wrought their immediate ruin.  Morals were bad enough in old\nGreece and Rome; as they were afterwards among the Turks: nevertheless as\nlong as a race is strong; as long as there is prudence, energy, deep\nnational feeling, outraged virtue does not avenge itself at once by\ngeneral ruin.  But it avenges itself at last, as Salvian shews--as all\nexperience shews.  As in individuals so in nations, unbridled indulgence\nof the passions must produce, and does produce, frivolity, effeminacy,\nslavery to the appetite of the moment, a brutalized and reckless temper,\nbefore which, prudence, energy, national feeling, any and every feeling\nwhich is not centered in self, perishes utterly.  The old French noblesse\ngave a proof of this law, which will last as a warning beacon to the end\nof time.  The Spanish population of America, I am told, gives now a\nfearful proof of this same terrible penalty.  Has not Italy proved it\nlikewise, for centuries past?  It must be so, gentlemen.  For national\nlife is grounded on, is the development of, the life of the family.  And\nwhere the root is corrupt, the tree must be corrupt likewise.  It must be\nso.  For Asmodeus does not walk alone.  In his train follow impatience\nand disappointment, suspicion and jealousy, rage and cruelty, and all the\npassions which set man's hand against his fellow-man.  It must be so.  For\nprofligacy is selfishness; and the family, and the society, the nation,\nexists only by casting away selfishness and by obeying law:--not only the\noutward law, which says in the name of God, 'Thou shalt not,' but the\ninward law, the Law of Christ, which says, 'Thou must;' the law of self-\nsacrifice, which selfish lust tramples under foot, till there is no more\ncohesion left between man and man, no more trust, no more fellow-help,\nthan between the stags who fight for the hinds; and God help the nation\nwhich has brought itself to that!\n\nNo wonder, therefore, if Salvian's accounts of Gaulish profligacy be\ntrue, that Gaulish recklessness reached at last a pitch all but\nincredible.  It is credible, however shocking, that as he says, he\nhimself saw, both at Treves, and another great city (probably Cologne,\nColonia Agrippina, or 'The Colony' par excellence) while the destruction\nof the state was imminent, 'old men of rank, decrepit Christians, slaves\nto gluttony and lust, rabid with clamour, furious with bacchanalian\norgies.'  It is credible, however shocking, that all through Gaul the\ncaptivity was 'foreseen, yet never dreaded.'  And 'so when the barbarians\nhad encamped almost in sight, there was no terror among the people, no\ncare of the cities.  All was possest by carelessness and sloth, gluttony,\ndrunkenness, sleep, according to that which the prophet saith: A sleep\nfrom the Lord had come over them.'  It is credible, however shocking,\nthat though Treves was four times taken by the barbarians, it remained\njust as reckless as ever; and that--I quote Salvian still--when the\npopulation was half destroyed by fire and sword, the poor dying of\nfamine, corpses of men and women lying about the streets breeding\npestilence, while the dogs devoured them, the few nobles who were left\ncomforted themselves by sending to the Emperor to beg for Circensian\ngames.\n\nThose Circensian games, and indeed all the public spectacles, are fresh\nproofs of what I said just now; that if a bad people earn bad government,\nstill a bad government makes a bad people.\n\nThey were the most extraordinary instance which the world ever saw, of a\ngovernment setting to work at a vast expense to debauch its subjects.\nWhether the Roman rulers set that purpose consciously before them, one\ndare not affirm.  Their notion probably was (for they were as worldly\nwise as they were unprincipled) that the more frivolous and sensual the\npeople were, the more quietly they would submit to slavery; and the best\nway to keep them frivolous and sensual, the Romans knew full well; so\nwell, that after the Empire became Christian, and many heathen matters\nwere done away with, they did not find it safe to do away with the public\nspectacles.  The temples of the Gods might go: but not the pantomimes.\n\nIn one respect, indeed, these government spectacles became worse, not\nbetter, under Christianity.  They were less cruel, no doubt: but also\nthey were less beautiful.  The old custom of exhibiting representations\nof the old Greek myths, which had something of grace and poetry about\nthem, and would carry back the spectators' thoughts to the nobler and\npurer heroic ages, disappeared before Christianity; but the old vice did\nnot.  That was left; and no longer ennobled by the old heroic myths round\nwhich it had clustered itself, was simply of the silliest and most vulgar\nkind.  We know in detail the abominations, as shameless and ridiculous,\nwhich went on a century after Salvian, in the theatres of Constantinople,\nunder the eyes of the most Christian Emperor Justinian, and which won for\nthat most infamous woman, Theodora, a share in his imperial crown, and\nthe right to dictate doctrine to the Christian Bishops of the East, and\nto condemn the soul of Origen to everlasting damnation, for having\nexprest hopes of the final pardon of sinners.  We can well believe,\ntherefore, Salvian's complaints of the wickedness of those pantomimes of\nwhich he says, that 'honeste non possunt vel accusari;' he cannot even\naccuse them without saying what he is ashamed to say; I believe also his\nassertion, that they would not let people be modest, even if they wished;\nthat they inflamed the passions, and debauched the imaginations of young\nand old, man and woman, and--but I am not here to argue that sin is sin,\nor that the population of London would be the worse if the most shameless\npersons among them were put by the Government in possession of Drury Lane\nand Covent Garden; and that, and nothing less than that, did the Roman\npantomimes mean, from the days of Juvenal till those of the most holy and\northodox Empress Theodora.\n\n'Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they who do such things are\nworthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do\nthem.'\n\nNow in contrast to all these abominations, old Salvian sets, boldly and\nhonestly, the superior morality of the barbarians.  That, he says, is the\ncause of their strength and our weakness.  We, professing orthodoxy, are\nprofligate hypocrites.  They, half heathens, half Arians, are honester\nmen, purer men than we.  There is no use, he says, in despising the Goths\nas heretics, while they are better men than we.  They are better\nChristians than the Romans, because they are better men.  They pray to\nGod for success, and trust in him, and we presumptuously trust in\nourselves.  We swear by Christ: but what do we do but blaspheme him, when\nwe swear 'Per Christum tollo eum,' 'I will make away with him,' 'Per\nChristum hunc jugulo,' 'I will cut his throat,' and then believe\nourselves bound to commit the murder which we have vowed? . . . 'The\nSaxons,' he says, 'are fierce, the Franks faithless, the Gepidae inhuman,\nthe Huns shameless.  But is the Frank's perfidy as blameable as ours?  Is\nthe Alman's drunkenness, or the Alan's rapacity, as damnable as a\nChristian's?  If a Hun or a Gepid deceives you, what wonder?  He is\nutterly ignorant that there is any sin in falsehood.  But what of the\nChristian who does the same?  The Barbarians,' he says, 'are better men\nthan the Christians.  The Goths,' he says, 'are perfidious, but chaste.\nThe Alans unchaste, but less perfidious.  The Franks are liars, but\nhospitable; the Saxons ferociously cruel, but venerable for their\nchastity.  The Visigoths who conquered Spain,' he says, 'were the most\n\"ignavi\" (heavy, I presume he means, and loutish) of all the barbarians:\nbut they were chaste, and therefore they conquered.'\n\nIn Africa, if we are to believe Salvian, things stood even worse, at the\ntime of the invasion of the Vandals.  In his violent invectives against\nthe Africans, however, allowance must be made.  Salvian was a great lover\nof monks; and the Africans used, he says, to detest them, and mob them\nwherever they appeared; for which offence, of course, he can find no\nwords too strong.  St. Augustine, however, himself a countryman of\ntheirs, who died, happily, just before the storm burst on that hapless\nland, speaks bitterly of their exceeding profligacy--of which he himself\nin his wild youth, had had but too sad experience.  Salvian's assertion\nis, that the Africans were the most profligate of all the Romans; and\nthat while each barbarian tribe had (as we have just seen) some good in\nthem, the Africans had none.\n\nBut there were noble souls left among them, lights which shone all the\nmore brightly in the surrounding darkness.  In the pages of Victor\nVitensis, which tell the sad story of the persecution of the African\nCatholics by the Arian Vandals, you will find many a moving tale which\nshews that God had his own, even among those degraded Carthaginians.\n\nThe causes of the Arian hatred to the Catholics is very obscure.  You\nwill find all that is known in Dean Milman's History of Latin\nChristianity.  A simple explanation may be found in the fact that the\nCatholics considered the Arians, and did not conceal their opinion, as\nall literally and actually doomed to the torments of everlasting fire;\nand that, as Gibbon puts it, 'The heroes of the north, who had submitted\nwith some reluctance, to believe that all their ancestors were in hell,\nwere astonished and exasperated to learn, that they themselves had only\nchanged the mode of their eternal condemnation.'  The Teutons were\n(Salvian himself confesses it) trying to serve God devoutly, in chastity,\nsobriety, and honesty, according to their light.  And they were told by\nthe profligates of Africa, that this and no less, was their doom.  It is\nnot to be wondered at, again, if they mistook the Catholic creed for the\ncause of Catholic immorality.  That may account for the Vandal custom of\nre-baptizing the Catholics.  It certainly accounts for the fact (if after\nall it be a fact) which Victor states, that they tortured the nuns to\nextort from them shameful confessions against the priests.  But the\nhistory of the African persecution is the history of all persecutions, as\nconfest again and again by the old fathers, as proved by the analogies of\nlater times.  The sins of the Church draw down punishment, by making her\nenemies confound her doctrine and her practice.  But in return, the\npunishment of the Church purifies her, and brings out her nobleness\nafresh, as the snake casts his skin in pain, and comes out young and fair\nonce more; and in every dark hour of the Church, there flashes out some\nbright form of human heroism, to be a beacon and a comfort to all future\ntime.  Victor, for instance, tells the story of Dionysia, the beautiful\nwidow whom the Vandals tried to torture into denying the Divinity of our\nLord.--How when they saw that she was bolder and fairer than all the\nother matrons, they seized her, and went to strip her: and she cried to\nthem, 'Qualiter libet occidite: verecunda tamen membra nolite nudare,'\nbut in vain.  They hung her up by the hands, and scourged her till\nstreams of blood ran down every limb.  Her only son, a delicate boy,\nstood by trembling, knowing that his turn would come next; and she saw\nit, and called to him in the midst of her shame and agony.  'He had been\nbaptized into the name of the Blessed Trinity; let him die in that name,\nand not lose the wedding-garment.  Let him fear the pain that never ends,\nand cling to the life that endures for ever.'  The boy took heart, and\nwhen his turn came, died under the torture; and Dionysia took up the\nlittle corpse, and buried it in her own house; and worshipped upon her\nboy's grave to her dying day.\n\nYes.  God had his own left, even among those fallen Africans of Carthage.\n\nBut neither there, nor in Spain, could the Vandals cure the evil.  'Now-a-\ndays,' says Salvian, 'there are no profligates among the Goths, save\nRomans; none among the Vandals, save Romans.  Blush, Roman people,\neverywhere, blush for your morals.  There is hardly a city free from dens\nof sin, and none at all from impurity, save those which the barbarians\nhave begun to occupy.  And do we wonder if we are surpassed in power, by\nan enemy who surpasses us in decency?  It is not the natural strength of\ntheir bodies which makes them conquer us.  We have been conquered only by\nthe vices of our own morals.'\n\nYes.  Salvian was right.  Those last words were no mere outburst of\nnational vanity, content to confess every sin, save that of being\ncowards.  He was right.  It was not the mere muscle of the Teuton which\nenabled him to crush the decrepit and debauched slave-nations, Gaul and\nBriton, Iberian and African, as the ox crushes the frogs of the marsh.\nThe 'sera juvenum Venus, ideoque inexhausta pubertas,' had given him more\nthan his lofty stature, and his mighty limbs.  Had he had nought but\nthem, he might have remained to the end a blind Samson, grinding among\nthe slaves in Caesar's mill, butchered to make a Roman holiday.  But it\nhad given him more, that purity of his; it had given him, as it may give\nyou, gentlemen, a calm and steady brain, and a free and loyal heart; the\nenergy which springs from health; the self-respect which comes from self-\nrestraint; and the spirit which shrinks from neither God nor man, and\nfeels it light to die for wife and child, for people, and for Queen.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO LECTURE III.--ON DR. LATHAM'S 'GERMANIA.'\n\n\nIf I have followed in these lectures the better known and more widely\nreceived etymology of the name Goth, I have done so out of no disrespect\nto Dr. Latham; but simply because his theory seems to me adhuc sub\njudice.  It is this, as far as I understand it.  That 'Goth' was not the\naboriginal name of the race.  That they were probably not so called till\nthey came into the land of the Getae, about the mouths of the Danube.\nThat the Teutonic name for the Ostrogoths was Grutungs, and that of the\nVisigoths (which he does not consider to mean West-Goths) Thervings,\nThuringer.  That on reaching the land of the Getae they took their name;\n'just as the Kentings of Anglo-Saxon England took name from the Keltic\ncountry of Kent;' and that the names Goth, Gothones, Gothini were\noriginally given to Lithuanians by their Sclavonic neighbours.  I merely\nstate the theory, and leave it for the judgment of others.\n\nThe principal points which Dr. Latham considers himself to have\nestablished, are--\n\nThat the area and population of the Teutonic tribes have been, on the\nauthority of Tacitus, much overrated; many tribes hitherto supposed to be\nTeutonic being really Sclavonic, &c.\n\nThis need not shock our pride, if proved--as it seems to me to be.  The\nnations who have influenced the world's destiny have not been great, in\nthe modern American sense of 'big;' but great in heart, as our\nforefathers were.  The Greeks were but a handful at Salamis; so were the\nRomans of the Republic; so were the Spaniards of America; so, probably,\nwere the Aztecs and Incas whom they overthrew; and surely our own\nconquerors and re-conquerers of Hindostan have shewn enough that it is\nnot numbers, but soul, which gives a race the power to rule.\n\nNeither need we object to Dr. Latham's opinion, that more than one of the\ntribes which took part in the destruction of the Empire were not\naboriginal Germans, but Sclavonians Germanized, and under German leaders.\nIt may be so.  The custom of enslaving captives would render pure\nTeutonic blood among the lower classes of a tribe the exception and not\nthe rule; while the custom of chiefs choosing the 'thegns,' 'gesitha,' or\n'comites,' who lived and died as their companions-in-arms, from among the\nmost valiant of the unfree, would tend to produce a mixed blood in the\nupper classes also, and gradually assimilate the whole mass to the\nmanners and laws of their Teutonic lords.  Only by some such actual\nsuperiority of the upper classes to the lower can I explain the deep\nrespect for rank and blood, which distinguishes, and will perhaps always\ndistinguish, the Teutonic peoples.  Had there even been anything like a\nprimaeval equality among our race, a hereditary aristocracy could never\nhave arisen, or if arising for a while, never could have remained as a\nfact which all believed in, from the lowest to the highest.  Just, or\nunjust, the institution represented, I verily believe, an ethnological\nfact.  The golden-haired hero said to his brown-haired bondsman, 'I am a\ngentleman, who have a \"gens,\" a stamm, a pedigree, and know from whom I\nam sprung.  I am a Garding, an Amalung, a Scylding, an Osing, or what\nnot.  I am a son of the gods.  The blood of the Asas is in my veins.  Do\nyou not see it?  Am I not wiser, stronger, more virtuous, more beautiful\nthan you?  You must obey me, and be my man, and follow me to the death.\nThen, if you prove a worthy thane, I will give you horse, weapons,\nbracelets, lands; and marry you, it may be, to my daughter or my niece.\nAnd if not, you must remain a son of the earth, grubbing in the dust of\nwhich you were made.'  And the bondsman believed him; and became his\nlord's man, and followed him to the death; and was thereby not degraded,\nbut raised out of selfish savagery and brute independence into loyalty,\nusefulness, and self-respect.  As a fact, that is the method by which the\nthing was done: done;--very ill indeed, as most human things are done;\nbut a method inevitable--and possibly right; till (as in England now) the\nlower classes became ethnologically identical with the upper, and\nequality became possible in law, simply because it existed in fact.\n\nBut the part of Dr. Latham's 'Germania' to which I am bound to call most\nattention, because I have not followed it, is that interesting part of\nthe Prolegomena, in which he combats the generally received theory, that,\nbetween the time of Tacitus and that of Charlemagne, vast masses of\nGermans had migrated southward from between the Elbe and the Vistula; and\nthat they had been replaced by the Sclavonians who certainly were there\nin Charlemagne's days.\n\nDr. Latham argues against this theory with a great variety of facts and\nreasons.  But has he not overstated his case on some points?\n\nNeed the migrations necessary for this theory have been of 'unparalleled\nmagnitude and rapidity'?\n\nAs for the 'unparalleled completeness' on which he lays much stress, from\nthe fact that no remnants of Teutonic population are found in the\ncountries evacuated:\n\nIs it the fact that 'history only tells us of German armies having\nadvanced south'?  Do we not find four famous cases--the irruption of the\nCimbri and Teutons into Italy; the passage of the Danube by the\nVisigoths; and the invasions of Italy first by the Ostrogoths, then by\nthe Lombards--in which the nations came with men, women, and children,\nhorses, cattle, and dogs, bag and baggage?  May not this have been the\ncustom of the race, with its strong feeling for the family tie; and may\nnot this account for no traces of them being left behind?\n\nDoes not Dr. Latham's theory proceed too much on an assumption that the\nSclavonians dispossest the Teutons by force?  And is not this assumption\nhis ground for objecting that the movement was effected improbably 'by\nthat division of the European population (the Sclavonic and Lithuanian)\nwhich has, within the historic period, receded before the Germanic'?\n\nAre these migrations, though 'unrepresented in any history' (i.e.\ncontemporaneous), really 'unrepresented in any tradition'?  Do not the\ntraditions of Jornandes and Paulus Diaconus, that the Goths and the\nLombards came from Scandinavia, represent this very fact?--and are they\nto be set aside as naught?  Surely not.  Myths of this kind generally\nembody a nucleus of truth, and must be regarded with respect; for they\noften, after all arguments about them are spent, are found to contain the\nvery pith of the matter.\n\nAre the 'phenomena of replacement and substitution' so very strange--I\nwill not say upon the popular theory, but at least on one half-way\nbetween it and Dr. Latham's?  Namely--\n\nThat the Teutonic races came originally, as some of them say they did,\nfrom Scandinavia, Denmark, the South Baltic, &c.\n\nThat they forced their way down, wave after wave, on what would have been\nthe line of least resistance--the Marches between the Gauls, Romanized or\notherwise, and the Sclavonians.  And that the Alps and the solid front of\nthe Roman Empire turned them to the East, till their vanguard found\nitself on the Danube.\n\nThis would agree with Dr. Latham's most valuable hint, that Markmen, 'Men\nof the Marches,' was perhaps the name of many German tribes successively.\n\nThat they fought, as they went, with the Sclavonian and other tribes (as\ntheir traditions seem to report), and rolled them back to the eastward;\nand that as each Teutonic tribe past down the line, the Sclavonians\nrolled back again, till the last column was past.\n\nThat the Teutons also carried down with them, as slaves or allies, a\nportion of this old Sclavonic population (to which Dr. Latham will\nperhaps agree); and that this fact caused a hiatus, which was gradually\nfilled by tribes who after all were little better than nomad hunters, and\nwould occupy (quite nominally) a very large tract with a small\npopulation.\n\nWould not this theory agree at once tolerably with the old traditions and\nwith Dr. Latham's new facts?\n\nThe question still remains--which is the question of all.  What put these\nGermanic peoples on going South?  Were there no causes sufficient to\nexcite so desperate a resolve?\n\n(1)  Did they all go?  Is not Paulus Diaconus' story that one-third of\nthe Lombards was to emigrate by lot, and two-thirds remain at home, a\nrough type of what generally happened--what happens now in our modern\nemigrations?  Was not the surplus population driven off by famine toward\nwarmer and more hopeful climes?\n\n(2)  Are not the Teutonic populations of England, North Germany, and the\nBaltic, the descendants, much intermixed, and with dialects much changed,\nof the portions which were left behind?  This is the opinion, I believe,\nof several great ethnologists.  Is it not true?  If philological\nobjections are raised to this, I ask (but in all humility), Did not these\nsouthward migrations commence long before the time of Tacitus?  If so,\nmay they not have commenced before the different Teutonic dialects were\nas distinct as they were in the historic period?  And are we to suppose\nthat the dialects did not alter during the long journeyings through many\nnations?  Is it possible that the Thervings and Grutungs could have\nretained the same tongue on the Danube, as their forefathers spoke in\ntheir native land?  Would not the Moeso-Gothic of Ulfilas have been all\nbut unintelligible to the Goth who, upon the old theory, remained in\nGothland of Sweden?\n\n(3)  But were there not more causes than mere want, which sent them\nsouth?  Had the peculiar restlessness of the race nothing to do with it?\nA restlessness not nomadic, but migratory: arising not from carelessness\nof land and home, but from the longing to found a home in a new land,\nlike the restlessness of us, their children?  As soon as we meet them in\nhistoric times, they are always moving, migrating, invading.  Were they\nnot doing the same in pre-historic times, by fits and starts, no doubt\nwith periods of excitement, periods of collapse and rest?  When we\nrecollect the invasion of the Normans; the wholesale eastward migration\nof the Crusaders, men, women, and children; and the later colonization by\nTeutonic peoples, of every quarter of the globe, is there anything\nwonderful in the belief that similar migratory manias may have seized the\nold tribes; that the spirit of Woden, 'the mover,' may have moved them,\nand forced them to go ahead, as now?  Doubtless the theory is strange.\nBut the Teutons were and are a strange people; so strange, that they have\nconquered--one may almost say that they are--all nations which are alive\nupon the globe; and we may therefore expect them to have done strange\nthings even in their infancy.\n\nThe Romans saw them conquer the empire; and said, the good men among\nthem, that it was on account of their superior virtue.  But beside the\nvirtue which made them succeed, there must have been the adventurousness\nwhich made them attempt.  They were a people fond of 'avanturen,' like\ntheir descendants; and they went out to seek them; and found enough and\nto spare.\n\n(4)  But more, had they never heard of Rome?  Surely they had, and at a\nvery early period of the empire.  We are apt to forget, that for every\ndiscovery of the Germans by the Romans, there was a similar discovery of\nthe Romans by the Germans, and one which would tell powerfully on their\nchildish imagination.  Did not one single Kemper or Teuton return from\nMarius' slaughter, to spread among the tribes (niddering though he may\nhave been called for coming back alive) the fair land which they had\nfound, fit for the gods of Valhalla; the land of sunshine, fruits and\nwine, wherein his brothers' and sisters' bones were bleaching unavenged?\nDid no gay Gaul of the Legion of the Lark, boast in a frontier wine-house\nto a German trapper, who came in to sell his peltry, how he himself was a\ngentleman now, and a civilized man, and a Roman; and how he had followed\nJulius Caesar, the king of men, over the Rubicon, and on to a city of the\nlike of which man never dreamed, wherein was room for all the gods of\nheaven?  Did no captive tribune of Varus' legions, led with horrid shouts\nround Thor's altar in the Teutoburger Wald, ere his corpse was hung among\nthe horses and goats on the primaeval oaks, turn to bay like a Roman, and\ntell his wild captors of the Eternal City, and of the might of that Caesar\nwho would avenge every hair upon his head with a German life; and receive\nfor answer a shout of laughter, and the cry--'You have come to us: and\nsome day we will go to you?'  Did no commissary, bargaining with a German\nfor cattle to be sent over the frontier by such a day of the week, and\nteaching him to mistranslate into those names of Thor, Woden, Freya, and\nso forth, which they now carry, the Jewish-Assyrian-Roman days of the\nse'nnight, amuse the simple forester by telling him how the streets of\nRome were paved with gold, and no one had anything to do there but to eat\nand bathe at the public expense, and to go to the theatre, and see 20,000\ngladiators fight at once?  Did no German 'Regulus,' alderman, or king,\nenter Rome on an embassy, and come back with uplifted eyes and hands,\ndeclaring that he had seen things unspeakable--a 'very fine plunder,' as\nBlucher said of London; and that if it were not for the walls, they might\nget it all; for not only the ladies, but the noblemen, went about in\nlitters of silver and gold, and wore gauze dresses, the shameless\nwretches, through which you might see every limb, so that as for killing\nthem, there was no more fear of them than of a flock of sheep: but that\nhe did not see as well as he could have wished how to enter the great\ncity, for he was more or less the worse for liquor the whole time, with\nwondrous stuff which they called wine?  Or did no captive, escaped by\nmiracle from the butcheries of the amphitheatre, return to tell his\ncountrymen how all the rest had died like German men; and call on them to\nrise and avenge their brothers' blood?  Yes, surely the Teutons knew\nwell, even in the time of Tacitus, of the 'micklegard,' the great city\nand all its glory.  Every fresh tribe who passed along the frontier of\nGaul or of Noricum would hear more and more of it, see more and more men\nwho had actually been there.  If the glory of the city exercised on its\nown inhabitants an intoxicating influence, as of a place omnipotent,\nsuperhuman, divine--it would exercise (exaggerated as it would be) a\nstill stronger influence on the barbarians outside: and what wonder if\nthey pressed southwards at first in the hope of taking the mighty city;\nand afterwards, as her real strength became more known, of at least\nseizing some of those colonial cities, which were as superhuman in their\neyes as Rome itself would have been?  In the crusades, the children,\nwhenever they came to a great town, asked their parents if that was not\nJerusalem.  And so, it may be, many a gallant young Teuton, on entering\nfor the first time such a city as Cologne, Lyons, or Vienna, whispered\nhalf trembling to his lord--'Surely this must be Rome.'\n\nSome such arguments as these might surely be brought in favour of a\ngreater migration than Dr. Latham is inclined to allow: but I must leave\nthe question for men of deeper research and wider learning, than I\npossess.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE III.--THE HUMAN DELUGE\n\n\n'I have taken in hand,' said Sir Francis Drake once to the crew of the\nimmortal Pelican, 'that which I know not how to accomplish.  Yea, it hath\neven bereaved me of my wits to think of it.'\n\nAnd so I must say on the subject of this lecture.  I wish to give you\nsome notion of the history of Italy for nearly one hundred years; say\nfrom 400 to 500.  But it is very difficult.  How can a man draw a picture\nof that which has no shape; or tell the order of absolute disorder?  It\nis all a horrible 'fourmillement des nations,' like the working of an ant-\nheap; like the insects devouring each other in a drop of water.  Teuton\ntribes, Sclavonic tribes, Tartar tribes, Roman generals, empresses,\nbishops, courtiers, adventurers, appear for a moment out of the crowd,\ndim phantoms--nothing more, most of them--with a name appended, and then\nvanish, proving their humanity only by leaving behind them one more stain\nof blood.\n\nAnd what became of the masses all the while? of the men, slaves the\ngreater part of them, if not all, who tilled the soil, and ground the\ncorn--for man must have eaten, then as now?  We have no hint.  One trusts\nthat God had mercy on them, if not in this world, still in the world to\ncome.  Man, at least, had none.\n\nTaking one's stand at Rome, and looking toward the north, what does one\nsee for nearly one hundred years?  Wave after wave rising out of the\nnorth, the land of night, and wonder, and the terrible unknown; visible\nonly as the light of Roman civilization strikes their crests, and they\ndash against the Alps, and roll over through the mountain passes, into\nthe fertile plains below.  Then at last they are seen but too well; and\nyou discover that the waves are living men, women, and children, horses,\ndogs, and cattle, all rushing headlong into that great whirlpool of\nItaly: and yet the gulf is never full.  The earth drinks up the blood;\nthe bones decay into the fruitful soil; the very names and memories of\nwhole tribes are washed away.  And the result of an immigration which may\nbe counted by hundreds of thousands is this--that all the land is waste.\n\nThe best authorities which I can give you (though you will find many more\nin Gibbon) are--for the main story, Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis.  Himself\na Goth, he wrote the history of his race, and that of Attila and his\nHuns, in good rugged Latin, not without force and sense.\n\nThen Claudian, the poet, a bombastic panegyrist of contemporary Roman\nscoundrels; but full of curious facts, if one could only depend on them.\n\nThen the earlier books of Procopius De Bello Gothico, and the Chronicle\nof Zosimus.\n\nSalvian, Ennodius and Sidonius Apollinaris, as Christians, will give you\ncurious details, especially as to South France and North Italy; while\nmany particulars of the first sack of Rome, with comments thereon which\nexpress the highest intellects of that day, you will find in St. Jerome's\nLetters, and St. Augustine's City of God.\n\nBut if you want these dreadful times _explained_ to you, I do not think\nyou can do better than to take your Bibles, and to read the Revelations\nof St. John the Apostle.  I shall quote them, more than once, in this\nlecture.  I cannot help quoting them.  The words come naturally to my\nlips, as fitter to the facts than any words of my own.\n\nI do not come here to interpret the Book of Revelations.  I do not\nunderstand that book.  But I do say plainly, though I cannot interpret\nthe book, that the book has interpreted those times to me.  Its awful\nmetaphors give me more living and accurate pictures of what went on than\nany that Gibbon's faithful details can give.\n\nYou may see, if you have spiritual eyes wherewith to see, the Dragon, the\nserpent, symbol of political craft and the devilish wisdom of the Roman,\ngiving authority to the Beast, the symbol of brute power; to mongrel\nAEtiuses and Bonifaces, barbarian Stilichos, Ricimers and Aspars, and a\nhost of similar adventurers, whose only strength was force.\n\nYou may see the world wondering after the beast, and worshipping brute\nforce, as the only thing left to believe in.\n\nYou may see the nations of the world gnawing their tongues for pain, and\nblaspheming God, but not repenting of their deeds.\n\nYou may see the faith and patience of the saints--men like Augustine,\nSalvian, Epiphanius, Severinus, Deogratias of Carthage, and a host more,\nno doubt, whose names the world will never hear--the salt of the earth,\nwhich kept it all from rotting.\n\nYou may see Babylon the great fallen, and all the kings and merchants of\nthe earth bewailing her afar off, and watching the smoke of her torment.\n\nYou may see, as St. John warns you, that--after her fall, mind--if men\nwould go on worshipping the beast, and much more his image--the phantom\nand shadow of brute force, after the reality had passed away--they should\ndrink of the wine of the wrath of God, and be tormented for ever.  For\nyou may see how those degenerate Romans did go on worshipping the shadow\nof brute force, and how they were tormented for ever; and had no rest day\nor night, because they worshipped the Beast and his image.\n\nYou may see all the fowl of the heavens flocking together to the feast of\nthe great God, to eat the flesh of kings and captains, horse and rider,\nbond and free.--All carrion-birds, human as well as brute--All greedy\nvillains and adventurers, the scoundreldom of the whole world, flocking\nin to get their share of the carcass of the dying empire; as the vulture\nand the raven flock in to the carrion when the royal eagles have gorged\ntheir fill.\n\nAnd lastly, you may see, if God give you grace, One who is faithful and\ntrue, with a name which no man knew, save Himself, making war in\nrighteousness against all evil; bringing order out of disorder, hope out\nof despair, fresh health and life out of old disease and death; executing\njust judgment among all the nations of the earth; and sending down from\nheaven the city of God, in the light of which the nations of those who\nare saved should walk, and the kings of the earth should bring their\npower and their glory into it; with the tree of life in the midst of it,\nwhose leaves should be for the healing of the nations.\n\nAgain, I say, I am not here to interpret the Book of Revelations; but\nthis I say, that that book interprets those times to me.\n\nLeaving, for the present at least, to better historians than myself the\ngeneral subject of the Teutonic immigrations; the conquest of North Gaul\nby the Franks, of Britain by the Saxons and Angles, of Burgundy by the\nBurgundians, of Africa by the Vandals, I shall speak rather of those\nTeutonic tribes which actually entered and conquered Italy; and first, of\ncourse, of the Goths.  Especially interesting to us English should their\nfortunes be, for they are said to be very near of kin to us; at least to\nthose Jutes who conquered Kent.  As Goths, Geats, Getae, Juts,\nantiquarians find them in early and altogether mythic times, in the\nScandinavian peninsula, and the isles and mainland of Denmark.\n\nTheir name, it is said, is the same as one name for the Supreme Being.\nGoth, Guth, Yuth, signifies war.  'God' is the highest warrior, the Lord\nof hosts, and the progenitor of the race, whether as an 'Eponym hero' or\nas the supreme Deity.  Physical force was their rude notion of Divine\npower, and Tiu, Tiv, or Tyr, in like manner, who was originally the god\nof the clear sky, the Zeus or Jove of the Greeks and Romans, became by\nvirtue of his warlike character, identical with the Roman Mars, till the\ndies Martis of the Roman week became the German Tuesday.\n\nWorking their way down from Gothland and Jutland, we know not why nor\nwhen, thrusting aside the cognate Burgunds, and the Sclavonic tribes whom\nthey met on the road, they had spread themselves, in the third century,\nover the whole South of Russia, and westward over the Danubian Provinces,\nand Hungary.  The Ostrogoths (East-goths) lay from the Volga to the\nBorysthenes, the Visigoths (West-goths?) from the Borysthenes to the\nTheiss.  Behind them lay the Gepidae, a German tribe, who had come south-\neastward with them, and whose name is said to signify the men who had\n'bided' (remained) behind the rest.\n\nWhat manner of men they were it is hard to say, so few details are left\nto us.  But we may conceive them as a tall, fair-haired people, clothed\nin shirts and smocks of embroidered linen, and gaiters cross-strapped\nwith hide; their arms and necks encircled with gold and silver rings; the\nwarriors, at least of the upper class, well horsed, and armed with lance\nand heavy sword, with chain-mail, and helmets surmounted with plumes,\nhorns, towers, dragons, boars, and the other strange devices which are\nstill seen on the crests of German nobles.  This much we can guess; for\nin this way their ancestors, or at least relations, the War-Geats, appear\nclothed in the grand old song of Beowulf.  Their land must have been\ntilled principally by slaves, usually captives taken in war: but the\nnoble mystery of the forge, where arms and ornaments were made, was an\nhonourable craft for men of rank; and their ladies, as in the middle age,\nprided themselves on their skill with the needle and the loom.  Their\nlanguage has been happily preserved to us in Ulfilas' Translation of the\nScriptures.  For these Goths, the greater number of them at least, were\nby this time Christians, or very nearly such.  Good Bishop Ulfilas,\nbrought up a Christian and consecrated by order of Constantine the Great,\nhad been labouring for years to convert his adopted countrymen from the\nworship of Thor and Woden.  He had translated the Bible for them, and had\nconstructed a Gothic alphabet for that purpose.  He had omitted, however\n(prudently as he considered) the books of Kings, with their histories of\nthe Jewish wars.  The Goths, he held, were only too fond of fighting\nalready, and 'needed in that matter the bit, rather than the spur.'  He\nhad now a large number of converts, some of whom had even endured\npersecution from their heathen brethren.  Athanaric, 'judge,' or alderman\nof the Thervings, had sent through the camp--so runs the story--the\nwaggon which bore the idol of Woden, and had burnt, with their tents and\ntheir families, those who refused to worship.\n\nThey, like all other German tribes, were ruled over by two royal races,\nsons of Woden and the Asas.  The Ostrogoth race was the Amalungs--the\n'heavenly,' or 'spotless' race; the Visigoth race was the Balthungs--the\n'bold' or 'valiant' race; and from these two families, and from a few\nothers, but all believed to be lineally descended from Woden, and now\nmuch intermixed, are derived all the old royal families of Europe, that\nof the House of Brunswick among the rest.\n\nThat they were no savages, is shewn sufficiently by their names, at least\nthose of their chiefs.  Such names as Alaric, 'all rich' or 'all\npowerful,' Ataulf, 'the helping father,' Fridigern, 'the willing peace-\nmaker,' and so forth--all the names in fact, which can be put back into\ntheir native form out of their Romanized distortions, are tokens of a\npeople far removed from that barbarous state in which men are named after\npersonal peculiarities, natural objects, or the beasts of the field.  On\nthis subject you may consult, as full of interest and instruction, the\nlist of Teutonic names given in Muratori.\n\nThey had broken over the Roman frontier more than once, and taken cities.\nThey had compelled the Emperor Gratian to buy them off.  They had built\nthemselves flat-bottomed boats without iron in them and sailed from the\nCrimea round the shores of the Black Sea, once and again, plundering\nTrebizond, and at last the temple itself of Diana at Ephesus.  They had\neven penetrated into Greece and Athens, plundered the Parthenon, and\nthreatened the capitol.  They had fought the Emperor Decius, till he, and\nmany of his legionaries, were drowned in a bog in the moment of victory.\nThey had been driven with difficulty back across the Danube by Aurelian,\nand walled out of the Empire with the Allemanni by Probus's\n'Teufels-Mauer,' stretching from the Danube to the Rhine.  Their time was\nnot yet come by a hundred years.  But they had seen and tasted the fine\nthings of the sunny south, and did not forget them amid the steppes and\nsnows.\n\nAt last a sore need came upon them.  About 350 there was a great king\namong them, Ermanaric, 'the powerful warrior,' comparable, says\nJornandes, to Alexander himself, who had conquered all the conquered\ntribes around.  When he was past 100 years old, a chief of the Roxolani\n(Ugrians, according to Dr. Latham; men of Ros, or Russia), one of these\ntribes, plotted against him, and sent for help to the new people, the\nHuns, who had just appeared on the confines of Europe and Asia.  Old\nErmanaric tore the traitor's wife to pieces with wild horses: but the\nHuns came nevertheless.  A magic hind, the Goths said, guided the new\npeople over the steppes to the land of the Goths, and then vanished.  They\nfought with the Goths, and defeated them.  Old Ermanaric stabbed himself\nfor shame, and the hearts of the Goths became as water before the tempest\nof nations.  They were supernatural creatures, the Goths believed,\nengendered of witches and demons on the steppes; pig-eyed hideous beings,\nwith cakes instead of faces, 'offam magis quam faciem,' under ratskin\ncaps, armed with arrows tipped with bone, and lassos of cord, eating,\nmarketing, sleeping on horseback, so grown into the saddle that they\ncould hardly walk in their huge boots.  With them were Acatzirs, painted\nblue, hair as well as skin; Alans, wandering with their waggons like the\nHuns, armed with heavy cuirasses of plaited horn, their horses decked\nwith human scalps; Geloni armed with a scythe, wrapt in a cloak of human\nskin; Bulgars who impaled their prisoners--savages innumerable as the\nlocust swarms.  Who could stand against them?\n\nIn the year 375, the West Goths came down to the Danube-bank and\nentreated the Romans to let them cross.  There was a Christian party\namong them, persecuted by the heathens, and hoping for protection from\nRome.  Athanaric had vowed never to set foot on Roman soil, and after\ndefending himself against the Huns, retired into the forests of\n'Caucaland.'  Good Bishop Ulfilas and his converts looked longingly\ntoward the Christian Empire.  Surely the Christians would receive them as\nbrothers, welcome them, help them.  The simple German fancied a Roman\neven such a one as themselves.\n\nUlfilas went on embassy to Antioch, to Valens the Emperor.  Valens, low-\nborn, cruel, and covetous, was an Arian, and could not lose the\nopportunity of making converts.  He sent theologians to meet Ulfilas, and\ntorment him into Arianism.  When he arrived, Valens tormented him\nhimself.  While the Goths starved he argued, apostasy was the absolute\ncondition of his help, till Ulfilas, in a weak moment, gave his word that\nthe Goths should become Arians, if Valens would give them lands on the\nSouth bank of the Danube.  Then they would be the Emperor's men, and\nguard the marches against all foes.  From that time Arianism became the\ncreed, not only of the Goths, but of the Vandals, the Sueves, and almost\nall the Teutonic tribes.\n\nIt was (if the story be true) a sinful and foolish compact, forced from a\ngood man by the sight of his countrymen's extreme danger and misery.  It\navenged itself, soon enough, upon both Goths and Romans.\n\nTo the Goths themselves the change must have seemed not only unimportant,\nbut imperceptible.  Unaccustomed to that accuracy of thought, which is\ntoo often sneered at by Gibbon as 'metaphysical subtlety,' all of which\nthey would have been aware was the change of a few letters in a creed\nwritten in an unknown tongue.  They could not know, (Ulfilas himself\ncould not have known, only two years after the death of St. Athanasius at\nAlexandria; while the Nicaean Creed was as yet received by only half of\nthe Empire; and while he meanwhile had been toiling for years in the\nDanubian wilds, ignorant perhaps of the controversy which had meanwhile\nconvulsed the Church)--neither the Goths nor he, I say, could have known\nthat the Arianism, which they embraced, was really the last, and as it\nwere apologetic, refuge of dying Polytheism; that it, and not the\nCatholic Faith, denied the abysmal unity of the Godhead; that by making\nthe Son inferior to the Father, as touching his Godhead, it invented two\nGods, a greater and a lesser, thus denying the absoluteness, the\ninfinity, the illimitability, by any category of quantity, of that One\nEternal, of whom it is written, that God is a Spirit.  Still less could\nthey have guessed that when Arius, the handsome popular preacher (whose\nvery name, perhaps, Ulfilas never heard) asked the fine ladies of\nAlexandria--'Had you a son before that son was born?'--'No.'  'Then God\ncould have no son before that son was begotten, &c.'--that he was\nmingling up the idea of Time with the idea of that Eternal God who\ncreated Time, and debasing to the accidents of before and after that\nTimeless and Eternal Generation, of which it is written, 'Thou art my\nSon, this day have I begotten thee.'  Still less could Ulfilas, or his\nGoths, have known, that the natural human tendency to condition God by\nTime, would be, in later ages, even long after Arianism was crushed\nutterly, the parent of many a cruel, gross, and stupid superstition.  To\nthem it would have been a mere question whether Woden, the All-father,\nwas superior to one of his sons, the Asas: and the Catholic faith\nprobably seemed to them an impious assumption of equality, on the part of\none of those Asas, with Woden himself.\n\nOf the battle between Arianism and Orthodoxy I have said enough to shew\nyou that I think it an internecine battle between truth and falsehood.\nBut it has been long ago judged by wager of battle: by the success of\nthat duel of time, of which we must believe (as our forefathers believed\nof all fair duels) that God defends the right.\n\nSo the Goths were to come over the Danube stream: but they must give up\ntheir arms, and deliver their children (those of rank, one supposes), as\nhostages, to be educated by the Romans, as Romans.\n\nThey crossed the fatal river; they were whole days in crossing; those set\nto count them gave it up in despair; Ammianus says: 'He who wishes to\nknow their number,'\n\n      'Libyci velit aequoris idem\n   Discere quam multae Zephyro volvuntur arenae.'\n\nAnd when they were across, they gave up the children.  They had not the\nheart to give up the beloved weapons.  The Roman commissioners let them\nkeep the arms, at the price of many a Gothic woman's honour.  Ugly and\nfoul things happened, of which we have only hints.  Then they had to be\nfed for the time being, till they could cultivate their land.  Lupicinus\nand Maximus, the two governors of Thrace pocketed the funds which Valens\nsent, and starved the Goths.  The markets were full of carrion and dogs'\nflesh.  Anything was good enough for a barbarian.  Their fringed carpets,\ntheir beautiful linens, all went.  A little wholesome meat cost 10 pounds\nof silver.  When all was gone, they had to sell their children.  To\nestablish a slave-trade in the beautiful boys and girls was just what the\nwicked Romans wanted.\n\nAt last the end came.  They began to rise.  Fridigern, their king, kept\nthem quiet till the time was ripe for revenge.  The Romans, trying to\nkeep the West Goths down, got so confused, it seems, that they let the\nwhole nation of the East Goths (of whom we shall hear more hereafter)\ndash across the Danube, and establish themselves in the north of the\npresent Turkey, to the east of the West Goths.\n\nThen at Marcianopolis, the capital of Lower Moesia, Lupicinus asked\nFridigern and his chiefs to a feast.  The starving Goths outside were\nrefused supplies from the market, and came to blows with the guards.\nLupicinus, half drunk, heard of it, and gave orders for a massacre.\nFridigern escaped from the palace, sword in hand.  The smouldering embers\nburst into flame, the war-cry was raised, and the villain Lupicinus fled\nfor his life.\n\nThen began war south of the Danube.  The Roman legions were defeated by\nthe Goths, who armed themselves with the weapons of the dead.  Moesia was\noverrun with fire and sword.  Adrianople was attacked, but in vain.  The\nslaves in the gold mines were freed from their misery, and shewed the\nGoths the mountain-passes and the stores of grain.  As they went on, the\nGoths recovered their children.  The poor things told horrid tales; and\nthe Goths, maddened, avenged themselves on the Romans of every age and\nsex.  'They left,' says St. Jerome, 'nothing alive--not even the beasts\nof the field; till nothing was left but growing brambles and thick\nforests.'\n\nValens, the Emperor, was at Antioch.  Now he hurried to Constantinople,\nbut too late.  The East Goths had joined the West Goths; and hordes of\nHuns, Alans, and Taifalae (detestable savages, of whom we know nothing\nbut evil) had joined Fridigern's confederacy.\n\nGratian, Valens' colleague and nephew, son of Valentinian the bear-ward,\nhad just won a great victory over the Allemanni at Colmar in Alsace; and\nValens was jealous of his glory.  He is said to have been a virtuous\nyouth, whose monomania was shooting.  He fell in love with the wild\nAlans, in spite of their horse-trappings of scalps, simply because of\ntheir skill in archery; formed a body-guard of them, and passed his time\nhunting with them round Paris.  Nevertheless, he won this great victory\nby the help, it seems, of one Count Ricimer ('ever-powerful'), Count of\nthe Domestics, whose name proclaims him a German.\n\nValens was jealous of Gratian's fame; he was stung by the reproaches of\nthe mob of Constantinople; and he undervalued the Goths, on account of\nsome successes of his lieutenants, who had recovered much of the plunder\ntaken by them, and had utterly overpowered the foul Taifalae,\ntransporting them to lands about Modena and Parma in Italy.  He rejected\nCount Ricimer's advice to wait till Gratian reinforced him with the\nvictorious western legions, and determined to give battle a few miles\nfrom Adrianople.  Had he waited for Gratian, the history of the whole\nworld might have been different.\n\nFor on the ninth of August, A.D. 378, the fatal day, the second Cannae,\nfrom which Rome never recovered as from that first, the young world and\nthe old world met, and fought it out; and the young world won.  The light\nRoman cavalry fled before the long lances and heavy swords of the German\nknights.  The knights turned on the infantry, broke them, hunted them\ndown by charge after charge, and left the footmen to finish the work.\n\nTwo-thirds of the Roman army were destroyed; four Counts of the Empire;\ngenerals and officers without number.  Valens fled wounded to a cottage.\nThe Goths set it on fire, and burned him and his staff therein, ignorant\nthat they had in their hands the Emperor of Rome.  Verily there is a God\nwho judgeth the earth.\n\nSo thought the Catholics of that day, who saw in the fearful death of\nValens a punishment for his having forced the Goths to become Arians.  'It\nwas just,' says one, 'that he should burn on earth, by whose counsels so\nmany barbarians will burn in hell for ever.'  There are (as I have shewn)\nstill darker counts in the conduct of the Romans toward the Goths; enough\n(if we believe our Bibles) to draw down on the guilty the swift and\nterrible judgments of God.\n\nAt least, this was the second Cannae, the death-wound of Rome.  From that\nday the end was certain, however slow.  The Teuton had at last tried his\nstrength against the Roman.  The wild forest-child had found himself\nsuddenly at death-grips with the Enchanter whom he had feared, and almost\nworshipped, for so long; and behold, to his own wonder, he was no more a\nchild, but grown into a man, and the stronger, if not the cunninger of\nthe two.  There had been a spell upon him; the 'Romani nominis umbra.'\nBut from that day the spell was broken.  He had faced a Roman Emperor, a\nDivus Caesar, the man-god by whose head all nations swore, rich with the\nmagic wealth, wise with the magic cunning, of centuries of superhuman\nglory; and he had killed him, and behold he died, like other men.  That\nhe had done.  What was there left for him now that he could not do?\n\nThe stronger he was, but not yet the cunninger of the two.  The Goths\ncould do no more.  They had to leave Adrianople behind them, with the\nEmperor's treasures safe within its walls; to gaze with childish wonder\nat the Bosphorus and its palaces; to recoil in awe from the 'long walls'\nof Constantinople, and the great stones which the engines thereon hurled\nat them by 'arsmetricke and nigromancy,' as their descendants believed of\nthe Roman mechanicians, even five hundred years after; to hear (without\nbeing able to avenge) the horrible news, that the Gothic lads distributed\nthroughout Asia, to be educated as Romans, had been decoyed into the\ncities by promises of lands and honours, and then massacred in cold\nblood; and then to settle down, leaving their children unavenged, for\ntwenty years on the rich land which we now call Turkey in Europe, waiting\ntill the time was come.\n\nWaiting, I say, till the time was come.  The fixed idea that Rome, if not\nConstantinople, could be taken at last, probably never left the minds of\nthe leading Goths after the battle of Adrianople.  The altered policy of\nthe Caesars was enough of itself to keep that idea alive.  So far from\nexpelling them from the country which they had seized, the new Emperor\nbegan to flatter and to honour them.\n\nThey had been heretofore regarded as savages, either to be driven back by\nmain force, or tempted to enlist in the Roman ranks.  Theodosius regarded\nthem as a nation, and one which it was his interest to hire, to trust, to\nindulge at the expense of his Roman subjects.\n\nTheodosius has received the surname of Great--seemingly by comparison;\n'Inter caecos luscus rex;' and it was highly creditable to a Roman\nEmperor in those days to be neither ruffian nor villain, but a handsome,\nhighbred, courteous gentleman, pure in his domestic life, an orthodox\nChristian, and sufficiently obedient to the Church to forgive the monks\nwho had burnt a Jewish synagogue, and to do penance in the Cathedral of\nMilan for the massacre of Thessalonica.  That the morals of the Empire\n(if Zosimus is to be at all believed) grew more and more effeminate,\ncorrupt, reckless; that the soldiers (if Vegetius is to be believed)\nactually laid aside, by royal permission, their helmets and cuirasses, as\ntoo heavy for their degenerate bodies; that the Roman heavy infantry,\nwhich had conquered the world, ceased to exist, while its place was taken\nby that Teutonic heavy cavalry, which decided every battle in Europe till\nthe English yeoman, at Crecy and Poictiers, turned again the balance of\narms in favour of the men who fought on foot; that the Goths became the\n'foederati' or allies of the Empire, paid to fight its battles against\nMaximus the Spaniard, and Arbogast the Frank, the rebels who, after the\nmurder of young Gratian, attempted to set up a separate empire in the\nwest; that Stilicho the Vandal was the Emperor's trusted friend, and\nmaster of the horse; that Alaric the Balth, and other noble Goths, were\nlearning to combine with their native courage those Roman tactics which\nthey only needed to become masters of the world; that in all cities, even\nin the Royal Palace, the huge Goth swaggered in Roman costume, his neck\nand arms heavy with golden torcs and bracelets; or even (as in the case\nof Fravitta and Priulf) stabbed his enemy with impunity at the imperial\ntable; that [Greek text], to disturb the Goths, was a deadly offence\nthroughout the Empire: all these things did not prevent a thousand new\nstatues from rising in honour of the great Caesar, and excited nothing\nmore than grumblings of impotent jealousy from a people whose maxim had\nbecome, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.'\n\nThree anecdotes will illustrate sufficiently the policy of Theodosius\ntoward his inconvenient guests.  Towards the beginning of his reign, when\nthe Goths, after the death of the great Fridigern, were broken up, and\nquarreling among themselves, he tempted a royal Amal, Modar by name, by\nthe title of Master-General, to attack and slaughter in their sleep a\nrival tribe of Goths, and carry off an immense spoil to the imperial\ncamp.  To destroy the German by the German was so old a method of the\nRoman policy, that it was not considered derogatory to the 'greatness' of\nTheodosius.\n\nThe old Athanaric, the Therving--he who had sworn never to set foot on\nRoman soil, and had burnt them who would not fall down and worship before\nWoden's waggon, came over the Danube, out of the forests of 'Caucaland,'\nand put himself at the head of the Goths.  The great Caesar trembled\nbefore the heathen hero; and they made peace together; and old Athanaric\nwent to him at Constantinople, and they became as friends.  And the\nRomani nominis umbra, the glamour of the Roman name, fell on the old man,\ntoo feeble now to fight; and as he looked, says Jornandes, on the site of\nthe city, and on the fleets of ships, and the world-famous walls, and the\npeople from all the nations upon earth, he said, 'Now I behold what I\nhave often heard tell, and never believed.  The Kaiser is a God on earth,\nand he who shall lift his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood.'\nThe old hero died in Constantinople, and the really good-natured Emperor\ngave him a grand funeral, and a statue, and so delighted the simple\nGoths, that the whole nation entered his service bodily, and became the\nEmperor's men.\n\nThe famous massacre of Thessalonica, and the penance of Theodosius,\nimmortalized by the pencil of Vandyke, is another significant example of\nthe relation between Goth and Roman.  One Botheric (a Vandal or other\nTeuton by his name) was military commandant of that important post.  He\nput in prison a popular charioteer of the circus, for a crime for which\nthe Teutonic language had to borrow a foreign name, and which the\nTeutons, like ourselves, punished with death, though it was committed\nwith impunity in any Roman city.  At the public games, the base mob\nclamoured, but in vain, for the release of their favourite; and not\ngetting him, rose on Botheric, murdered him and his officers, and dragged\ntheir corpses through the streets.\n\nThis was indeed [Greek text]; and Theodosius, partly in honest\nindignation, partly perhaps in fear of the consequences, issued orders\nfrom Milan which seem to have amounted to a permission to the Goths to\navenge themselves.  The populace were invited as usual to the games of\nthe circus, and crowded in, forgetful of their crime, heedless of danger,\nabsorbed in the one greed of frivolous, if not sinful pleasure.  The\nGothic troops concealed around entered, and then began a 'murder grim and\ngreat.'  For three hours it lasted.  Every age and sex, innocent or\nguilty, native or foreigner, to the number of at least 7,000, perished,\nor are said to have perished; and the soul of Botheric had 'good company\non its way to Valhalla.'\n\nThe Goths, doubtless, considered that they were performing an act of\npublic justice upon villains: but the Bishops of the Church looked at the\nmatter in another light.  The circumstances of treachery, the confusion\nof the innocent with the guilty, the want of any judicial examination and\nsentence, aroused their sense of humanity and justice.  The offence was\naggravated by the thought that the victims were Roman and orthodox, the\nmurderers barbarians and Arians; St. Ambrose, with a noble courage,\nstopped the Emperor at the door of the Basilica of Milan, and forbad him\nto enter, till he had atoned for the fatal order by public penance.  The\nCaesar submitted nobly to the noble demand; and the repentance of\nTheodosius is the last scene in the downward career of the Caesars, which\ncan call forth a feeling of admiration and respect.\n\nIn January 395 Theodosius died; and after him came the deluge.\n\nThe Empire was parted between his two worthless sons.  Honorius had the\nwest, Arcadius the east; while the real master of the Empire was Stilicho\nthe Vandal, whose virtues and valour and mighty stature are sung (and not\nundeservedly) in the pompous verses of Claudian.  Of the confusion which\nensued; of the murder (well-deserved) of Rufinus, the infamous minister\nwhose devout hypocrisy had so long cajoled Theodosius; of the revolt and\natrocities of Gildo in Africa, you must read in the pages of Gibbon.\nThese lectures confine themselves, at present, to the history of the\nGoths.\n\nIn January 395, I said, Theodosius died.  Before the end of the winter\nthe Goths were in arms, with Alaric the Balth at their head.  They had\nbeen refused, at least for the time, the payment of their usual subsidy.\nHe had been refused the command of the Roman armies.  Any excuse was\nsufficient.  The fruit was ripe for plucking.  The wrongs of centuries\nwere to be avenged.  Other tribes crost the Danube on the ice, and joined\nthe Goths; and the mighty host swept down through Greece, passing\nThermopylae unopposed, ransoming Athens (where Alaric enjoyed a Greek\nbath and a public banquet, and tried to behave for a day like a Roman\ngentleman); sacking Corinth, Argos, Sparta, and all the cities and\nvillages far and wide, and carrying off plunder inestimable, and troops\nof captive women.\n\nStilicho threw himself into the Peloponnese at Corinth to cut off the\nGoths, and after heavy fighting, Alaric, who seems to have been a really\ngreat general, out-manoeuvred him, crost the Gulf of Corinth at Rhium,\nwith all his plunder and captives, and got safe away into northern\nGreece.\n\nThere Arcadius, the terrified Emperor of the East, punished him for\nhaving devastated Greece, by appointing him Master-General of the very\ncountry which he had ravaged.  The end was coming very near.  The Goths\nlifted him on the shield, and proclaimed him King of the West Goths; and\nthere he staid, somewhere about the head of the Adriatic, poised like an\neagle in mid-air, watching Rome on one side, and Byzant on the other,\nuncertain on which quarry he should swoop.\n\nHe made up his mind for Rome.  He would be the man to do the deed at\nlast.  There was a saga in which he trusted.  Claudian gives it in an\nhexameter,\n\n   'Alpibus Italiae ruptis penetrabis ad urbem.'\n\nYes, he would take The City, and avenge the treachery of Valens, and all\nthe wrongs which Teutons had endured from the Romans for now four\ncenturies.  And he did it.\n\nBut not the first time.  He swept over the Alps.  Honorius fled to Asta,\nand Alaric besieged him there.  The faithful Stilicho came to the rescue;\nand Alaric was driven to extremities.  His warriors counselled him to\nretreat.  No, he would take Rome, or die.  But at Pollentia, Stilicho\nsurprised him, while he and his Goths were celebrating Easter Sunday, and\na fearful battle followed.  The Romans stormed his camp, recovered the\nspoils of Greece, and took his wife, decked in the jewels in which she\nmeant to enter Rome.  One longs to know what became of her.\n\nAt least, so say the Romans: the Goths tell a very different story; and\none suspects that Pollentia may be one more of those splendid paper\nvictories, in which the Teutons were utterly exterminated, only to rise\nout of the ground, seemingly stronger and more numerous than ever.  At\nleast, instead of turning his head to the Alps, he went on toward Rome.\nStilicho dared not fight him again, and bought him off.  He turned\nnorthward toward Gaul, and at Verona Stilicho got him at an advantage,\nand fought him once more, and if we are to believe Rosino and Claudian,\nbeat him again.  'Taceo de Alarico, saepe victo, saepe concluso,\nsemperque dimisso.'  'It is ill work trapping an eagle,' says some one.\nWhen you have caught him, the safest thing very often is to let him go\nagain.\n\nMeanwhile poured down into Italy, as far as Florence (a merely\nunimportant episode in those fearful days), another wave of German\ninvaders under one Radogast, 200,000 strong.  Under the walls of Florence\nthey sat down, and perished of wine, and heat, and dysentery.  Like water\nthey flowed in, and like water they sank into the soil: and every one of\nthem a human soul.\n\nStilicho and Honorius went to Rome, and celebrated their triumph over the\nGoths, with (for the last time in history) gladiatorial sports.  Three\nyears past, and then Stilicho was duly rewarded for having saved Rome, in\nthe approved method for every great barbarian who was fool enough to help\nthe treacherous Roman; namely, by being murdered.\n\nAlaric rose instantly, and with him all the Gothic tribes.  Down through\nItaly he past, almost without striking a blow.  Ravenna, infamous,\naccording to Sidonius, for its profligacy, where the Emperor's court was,\nhe past disdainfully, and sat down before the walls of Rome.  He did not\ntry to storm it.  Probably he could not.  He had no such machines, as\nthose with which the Romans battered walls.  Quietly he sat, he and his\nGoths, 'as wolves wait round the dying buffalo;' waiting for the Romans\nwithin to starve and die.  They did starve and die; men murdered each\nother for food; mothers ate their own babes; but they sent out embassies,\nboasting of their strength and numbers.  Alaric laughed,--'The thicker\nthe hay, the easier it is mowed.'  What terms would he take?  'All your\ngold, all your silver, the best of your precious things.  All your\nbarbarian slaves.'  That last is significant.  He would deliver his own\nflesh and blood.  The Teuton man should be free.  The trolls should drag\nno more of the forest children into their accursed den.  'What then will\nyou leave us?'  'Your lives.'\n\nThey bought him off with a quaint ransom: 5000 pounds weight of gold,\n30,000 of silver, 4000 robes of silk, 3000 pieces of scarlet cloth, and\n3000 lbs. of pepper, possibly spices of all kinds.  Gold, and finery, and\nspices--gifts fit for children, such as those Goths were.\n\nBut he got, too, 40,000 Teuton slaves safe out of the evil place, and\nembodied them into his army.  He had now 100,000 fighting men.  Why did\nhe not set up as king of Italy?  Was it that the awe of the place, the\nprestige of the Roman name, cowed him?  It cowed each of the Teutonic\ninvaders successively.  To make themselves emperors of Rome was a thing\nof which they dared not dream.  Be that as it may, all he asked was, to\nbe received as some sort of vassal of the Emperor.  The\nMaster-Generalship of Italy, subsidies for his army, an independent\ncommand in the Tyrolese country, whence he had come, were his demand.\n\nOverblown with self-conceit, the Romans refused him.  They would listen\nto no conditions.  They were in a thoroughly Chinese temper.  You will\nfind the Byzantine empire in the same temper centuries after; blinded to\npresent weakness by the traditions of their forefathers' strength.  They\nhad worshipped the beast.  Now that only his image was left, they\nworshipped that.\n\nAlaric seized Ostia, and cut off their supplies.  They tried to appease\nhim by dethroning Honorius, and setting up some puppet Attalus.  Alaric\nfound him plotting; or said that he had done so; and degraded him\npublicly at Rimini before his whole army.  Again he offered peace.  The\ninsane Romans proclaimed that his guilt precluded him for ever from the\nclemency of the Empire.\n\nThen came the end.  He marched on Rome.  The Salarian gate was thrown\nopen at midnight, probably by German slaves within; and then, for five\ndreadful days and nights, the wicked city expiated in agony the sins of\ncenturies.\n\nAnd so at last the Nibelungen hoard was won.\n\n'And the kings of the earth who had lived delicately with her, and the\nmerchants of the earth who were made rich by her, bewailed her, standing\nafar off for the fear of her torment, and crying, Alas! alas, that great\nBabylon! for in one hour is thy judgment come.'\n\nSt. John passes in those words from the region of symbol to that of\nliteral description.  A great horror fell upon all nations, when the news\ncame.  Rome taken?  Surely the end of all things was at hand.  The\nwretched fugitives poured into Egypt and Syria--especially to Jerusalem;\nperhaps with some superstitious hope that Christ's tomb, or even Christ\nhimself, might save them.\n\nSt. Jerome, as he saw day by day patrician men and women who had passed\ntheir lives in luxury, begging their bread around his hermitage at\nBethlehem, wrote of the fall of Rome as a man astonied.\n\nSt. Augustine, at Hippo, could only look on it as the end of all human\npower and glory, perhaps of the earth itself.  Babylon the great had\nfallen, and now Christ was coming in the clouds of heaven to set up the\ncity of God for ever.  In that thought he wrote his De Civitate Dei.  Read\nit, gentlemen--especially you who are to be priests--not merely for its\ndetails of the fall of Rome, but as the noblest theodicy which has yet\nproceeded from a human pen.\n\nFollowed by long trains of captives, long trains of waggons bearing the\nspoils of all the world, Alaric went on South, 'with the native instinct\nof the barbarian,' as Dr. Sheppard well says.  Always toward the sun.\nAway from Muspelheim and the dark cold north, toward the sun, and\nValhalla, where Odin and the Asas dwell in everlasting light.\n\nHe tried to cross into Sicily: but a storm wrecked his boats, and the\nGoths were afraid of the sea.  And after a while he died.  And the wild\nmen made a great mourning over him.  They had now no plan left; no heart\nto go south, and look for Odin over the sea.  But of one thing they were\nresolved, that the base Romans should not dig up Alaric out of his barrow\nand scatter his bones to the winds.\n\nSo they put no barrow over the great king; but under the walls of Cosenza\nthey turned the river-bed, and in that river-bed they set Alaric, armed\nand mailed, upright upon his horse, with gold, and jewels, and arms, and\nit may be captive youths and maids, that he might enter into Valhalla in\nroyal pomp, and make a worthy show among the heroes in Odin's hall.  And\nthen they turned back the river into its bed, and slew the slaves who had\ndone the work, that no man might know where Alaric lies: and no man does\nknow till this day.\n\nAs I said, they had no plan left now.  Two years they stayed in Campania,\nbasking in the villas and gardens, drinking their fill of the wine; and\nthen flowed away northward again, no one knows why.  They had no wish to\nsettle, as they might have done.  They followed some God-given instinct,\nundiscoverable now by us.  Ataulf, Alaric's kinsman, married Placidia,\nthe Emperor's beautiful young sister, and accepted from him some sort of\ncommission to fight against his enemies in Gaul.  So to the south of Gaul\nthey went, and then into Spain, crushing before them Alans, Sueves, and\nVandals, and quarrelling among themselves.  Ataulf was murdered, and all\nhis children; Placidia put to shame.  Then she had her revenge.  To me it\nis not so much horrible as pitiful.  They had got the Nibelungen hoard;\nand with it the Nibelungen curse.\n\nA hundred years afterwards, when the Franks pillaged the Gothic palace of\nNarbonne, they found the remnants of it.  Things inestimable,\nindescribable; tables of solid emerald; the Missorium, a dish 2500 lbs.\nweight, covered with all the gems of India.  They had been in Solomon's\nTemple, fancied the simple Franks--as indeed some of them may well have\nbeen.  The Arabs got the great emerald table at last, with its three rows\nof great pearls.  Where are they all now?  What is become, gentlemen, of\nthe treasures of Rome?  Jewels, recollect, are all but indestructible;\nrecollect, too, that vast quantities were buried from time to time, and\ntheir places forgotten.  Perhaps future generations will discover many\nsuch hoards.  Meanwhile, many of those same jewels must be in actual use\neven now.  Many a gem which hangs now on an English lady's wrist saw\nAlaric sack Rome--and saw before and since--What not?  The palaces of the\nPharaohs, or of Darius; then the pomp of the Ptolemies, or of the\nSeleucids--came into Europe on the neck of some vulgar drunken wife of a\nRoman proconsul, to glitter for a few centuries at every gladiator's\nbutchery in the amphitheatre; then went away with Placidia on a Gothic ox-\nwaggon, to pass into an Arab seraglio at Seville; and then, perhaps, back\nfrom Sultan to Sultan again to its native India, to figure in the peacock-\nthrone of the Great Mogul, and be bought at last by some Armenian for a\nfew rupees from an English soldier, and come hither--and whither next?\nWhen England shall be what Alexandria and Rome are now, that little stone\nwill be as bright as ever.--An awful symbol, if you will take it so, of\nthe permanence of God's works and God's laws, amid the wild chance and\nchange of sinful man.\n\nThen followed for Rome years of peace,--such peace as the wicked make for\nthemselves--A troubled sea, casting up mire and dirt.  Wicked women,\nwicked counts (mayors of the palace, one may call them) like Aetius and\nBoniface, the real rulers of a nominal Empire.\n\nPuppet Valentinian succeeded his father, puppet Honorius.  In his days\nappeared another great portent--another comet, sweeping down out of\ninfinite space, and back into infinite space again.--Attila and his Huns.\nThey lay in innumerable hordes upon the Danube, until Honoria,\nValentinian's sister, confined in a convent at Constantinople for some\nprofligacy, sent her ring to Attila.  He must be her champion, and\ndeliver her.  He paused a while, like Alaric before him, doubting whether\nto dash on Constantinople or Rome, and at last decided for Rome.  But he\nwould try Gaul first; and into Gaul he poured, with all his Tartar\nhordes, and with them all the Teuton tribes, who had gathered in his\nprogress, as an avalanche gathers the snow in its course.  At the great\nbattle of Chalons, in the year 451, he fought it out: Hun, Sclav, Tartar,\nand Finn, backed by Teutonic Gepid and Herule, Turkling, East Goth and\nLombard, against Roman and West Goth, Frank and Burgund, and the Bretons\nof Armorica.  Wicked Aetius shewed himself that day, as always, a general\nand a hero--the Marlborough of his time--and conquered.  Attila and his\nhordes rolled away eastward, and into Italy for Rome.\n\nThat is the Hunnenschlacht; 'a battle,' as Jornandes calls it, 'atrox,\nmultiplex, immane, pertinax.'  Antiquity, he says, tells of nothing like\nit.  No man who had lost that sight could say that he had seen aught\nworth seeing.--A fight gigantic, supernatural in vastness and horror, and\nthe legends which still hang about the place.  You may see one of them in\nVon Kaulbach's immortal design--the ghosts of the Huns and the ghosts of\nthe Germans rising from their graves on the battle-night in every year,\nto fight it over again in the clouds, while the country far and wide\ntrembles at their ghostly hurrah.  No wonder men remember that\nHunnenschlacht.  Many consider that it saved Europe; that it was one of\nthe decisive battles of the world.\n\nNot that Attila was ruined.  Within the year he had swept through\nGermany, crossed the Alps, and devastated Italy almost to the walls of\nRome.  And there the great Pope Leo, 'the Cicero of preaching, the Homer\nof theology, the Aristotle of true philosophy,' met the wild heathen: and\na sacred horror fell upon Attila, and he turned, and went his way, to die\na year or two after no man knows how.  Over and above his innumerable\nwives, he took a beautiful German girl.  When his people came in the\nmorning, the girl sat weeping, or seeming to weep; but Etzel, the scourge\nof God, lay dead in a pool of gore.  She said that he had burst a blood-\nvessel.  The Teutons whispered among themselves, that like a free-born\nTeuton, she had slain her tyrant.  One longs to know what became of her.\n\nAnd then the hordes broke up.  Ardarich raised the Teuton Gepids and\nOstrogoths.  The Teutons who had obeyed Attila, turned on their Tartar\nconquerors, the only people who had ever subdued German men, and then\nonly by brute force of overpowering numbers.  At Netad, upon the great\nplain between the Drave and the Danube, they fought the second\nHunnenschlacht, and the Germans conquered.  Thirty thousand Huns fell on\nthat dreadful day, and the rest streamed away into the heart of Asia,\ninto the infinite unknown deserts from whence the foul miscreants had\nstreamed forth, and left the Teutons masters of the world.  The battle of\nNetad; that, and not Chalons, to my mind, was the saving battle of\nEurope.\n\nSo Rome was saved; but only for a few years.  Puppet Valentinian rewarded\nAetius for saving Rome, by stabbing with his own hand in his own palace,\nthe hero of Chalons; and then went on to fill up the cup of his iniquity.\nIt is all more like some horrible romance than sober history.  Neglecting\nhis own wife Eudoxia, he took it into his wicked head to ravish her\nintimate friend, the wife of a senator.  Maximus stabbed him, retaliated\non the beautiful empress, and made himself Emperor.  She sent across the\nseas to Africa, to Genseric the Vandal, the cruel tyrant and persecutor.\nHe must come and be her champion, as Attila had been Honoria's.  And he\ncame, with Vandals, Moors, naked Ausurians from the Atlas.  The wretched\nRomans, in their terror, tore Maximus in pieces; but it was too late.\nEudoxia met Genseric at the gates in royal robes and jewels.  He stript\nher of her jewels on the spot, and sacked Rome; and that was her reward.\n\nThis is the second sack.  More dreadful far than the first--455 is its\ndate.  Then it was that the statues, whose fragments are still found,\nwere hurled in vain on the barbarian assailants.  Not merely gold and\njewels, but the art-treasures of Rome were carried off to the Vandal\nfleet, and with them the golden table and the seven-branched candlestick\nwhich Titus took from the Temple of Jerusalem.\n\nHow had these things escaped the Goths forty years before?  We cannot\ntell.  Perhaps the Gothic sack, which only lasted five days, was less\ncomplete than this one, which went on for fourteen days of unutterable\nhorrors.  The plunderers were not this time sturdy honest Goths; not even\nGerman slaves, mad to revenge themselves on their masters: they were\nMoors, Ausurian black savages, and all the pirates and cut-throats of the\nMediterranean.\n\nSixty thousand prisoners were carried off to Carthage.  All the statues\nwere wrecked on the voyage to Africa, and lost for ever.\n\nAnd yet Rome did not die.  She lingered on; her Emperor still calling\nhimself an Emperor, her senate a senate; feeding her lazy plebs, as best\nshe could, with the remnant of those revenues which former Emperors had\nset aside for their support--their public bread, public pork, public oil,\npublic wine, public baths,--and leaving them to gamble and quarrel, and\nlisten to the lawyers in rags and rascality, and to rise and murder ruler\nafter ruler, benefactor after benefactor, out of base jealousy and fear\nof any one less base than themselves.  And so 'the smoke of her torment\nwent up continually.'\n\nBut if Rome would not die, still less would she repent; as it is\nwritten--'The remnant of the people repented not of their deeds, but\ngnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven.'\n\nAs the century runs on, the confusion becomes more and more dreadful.\nAnthemius, Olybrius, Orestes, and the other half-caste Romans with Greek\nnames who become quasi-emperors and get murdered; Ricimer the Sueve, the\nking-maker and king-murderer; even good Majorian, who as puppet Emperor\nset up by Ricimer, tries to pass a few respectable laws, and is only\nmurdered all the sooner.  None of these need detain us.  They mean\nnothing, they represent no idea, they are simply kites and crows\nquarrelling over the carcase, and cannot possibly teach us anything, but\nthe terrible lesson, that in all revolutions the worst men are certain to\nrise to the top.\n\nBut only for a while, gentlemen, only for a while.  Villany is by its\nvery essence self-destructive, and if rogues have their day, the time\ncomes when rogues fall out, and honest men come by their own.\n\nThat day, however, was not come for wretched Rome.  A third time she was\nsacked by Ricimer her own general; and then more villains ruled her; and\nmore kites and crows plundered her.  The last of them only need keep us a\nwhile.  He is Odoacer, the giant Herule, Houd-y-wacker, as some say his\nname really is, a soubriquet perhaps from his war-cry, 'Hold ye stoutly,'\n'Stand you steady.'  His father was AEdecon, Attila's secretary, chief of\nthe little Turkling tribe, who, though Teutonic, had clung faithfully to\nAttila's sons, and after the battle of Netad, came to ruin.  There are\nstrange stories of Odoacer.  One from the Lives of St. Severinus, how\nOdoacer and his brothers started over the Alps, knapsacks at back, to\nseek their fortunes in Italy, and take service with the Romans; and how\nthey came to St. Severinus' cell near Vienna, and went in, heathens as\nthey probably were, to get a blessing from the holy hermit; and how\nOdoacer had to stoop, and stand stooping, so huge he was.  And how the\nsaint saw that he was no common lad, and said, 'Go into Italy, clothed in\nthy ragged sheep-skins: thou shalt soon give greater gifts to thy\nfriends.'  So he went, and his brother with him.  One of them at least\nought to interest us.  He was Onulf, Hunwulf, Wulf, Guelph, the Wolf-cub,\nwho went away to Constantinople, and saw strange things, and did strange\nthings likewise, and at last got back to Germany, and settled in Bavaria,\nand became the ancestor of all the Guelphs, and of Victoria, queen of\nEngland.  His son, Wulfgang, fought under Belisarius against the Goths;\nhis son again, Ulgang, under Belisarius against Persian and Lombard; his\nson or grandson was Queen Brunhilda's confidant in France, and became\nDuke of Burgundy; and after that the fortunes of his family were mixed up\nwith the Merovingian kings of France, and then again with the Lombards in\nItaly, till one of them emerges as Guelf, count of Altorf, the ancestor\nof our Guelphic line.\n\nBut to return to Odoacer.  He came to Rome, seeking his fortune.  There\nhe found in power Orestes, his father's old colleague at Attila's court,\nthe most unprincipled turn-coat of his day; who had been the Emperor's\nman, then Attila's man, and would be anybody's man if needed: but who was\nnow his own man, being king-maker for the time being, and father of the\npuppet Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, a pretty little lad, with an ominous\nname.\n\nOdoacer took service under Orestes in the bodyguards, became a great\nwarrior and popular; watched his time; and when Orestes refused the\nmercenaries, Herules, Rugians, Scyrings, Turklings and Alans--all the\nweak or half-caste frontier tribes who had as yet little or no share in\nthe spoils of Italy--their demand of the third of the lands of Italy, he\nbetrayed his benefactor; promised the mercenaries to do for them what\nOrestes would not, and raises his famous band of confederates.  At last\nhe called himself King of Nations, burnt Pavia, and murdered Orestes, as\na due reward for his benefits.  Stript of his purple, the last Emperor of\nRome knelt crying at the feet of the German giant, and begged not to be\nmurdered like his father.  And the great wild beast's hard heart smote\nhim, and he sent the poor little lad away, to live in wealth and peace in\nLucullus' villa at Misenum, with plenty of money, and women, and gewgaws,\nto dream away his foolish life looking out over the fair bay of\nNaples--the last Emperor of Rome.\n\nThen Odoacer set to work, and not altogether ill.  He gave his\nconfederates the third of Italy, in fief under himself as king, and for\nfourteen years (not without the help of a few more murders) he kept some\nsort of rude order and justice in the wretched land.  Remember him, for,\nbad man as he is, he does represent a principle.  He initiated, by that\ngift of the lands to his soldiers, the feudal system in Italy.  I do not\nmean that he invented it.  It seems rather to be a primaeval German form,\nas old as the days of Tacitus, who describes, if you will recollect, the\nGerman war-kings as parting the conquered lands among their 'comites,'\nthanes, or companions in arms.\n\nSo we leave Odoacer king of Italy, for fourteen years, little dreaming,\nperhaps, of the day when as he had done unto others so should it be done\nto him.  But for that tale of just and terrible retribution you must wait\ntill the next lecture.\n\nAnd now, to refresh us with a gleam of wholesome humanity after all these\nhorrors, let us turn to our worthy West Goth cousins for a while.  They\nhave stopt cutting each other's throats, settled themselves in North\nSpain and South France, and good bishop Sidonius gets to like them.  They\nare just and honest men on the whole, kindly, and respectable in morals,\nliving according to their strange old Gothic Law.  But above all Sidonius\nlikes their king--Theodoric is his name.  A man of blood he has been in\nhis youth: but he has settled down, like his people; and here is a\npicture of him.  A real photograph of a live old Goth, nearly 1400 years\nago.  Gibbon gives a good translation of it.  I will give you one, but\nSidonius is prolix and florid, and I have had to condense.\n\nA middle-sized, stout man, of great breadth of chest, and thickness of\nlimb, a large hand, and a small foot, curly haired, bushy eye-browed,\nwith remarkably large eyes and eyelids, hook-nosed, thin-lipped;\nbrilliant, cheerful, impassioned, full of health and strength in mind and\nbody.  He goes to chapel before day-light, sits till eight doing justice,\nwhile the crowd, let into a latticed enclosure, is admitted one by one\nbehind a curtain into the presence.  At eight he leaves the throne, and\ngoes either to count his money, or look at his horses.  If he hunts, he\nthinks it undignified to carry his bow, and womanish to keep it strung, a\nboy carries it behind him; and when game gets up, he asks you (or the\nBishop, who seems to have gone hunting with him) what you would wish him\nto aim at; strings his bow, and then (says Sidonius) never misses his\nshot.  He dines at noon, quietly in general, magnificently on Saturdays;\ndrinks very little, and instead of sleeping after dinner, plays at tables\nand dice.  He is passionately fond of his game, but never loses his\ntemper, joking and talking to the dice, and to every one round him,\nthrowing aside royal severity, and bidding all be merry (says the\nbishop); for, to speak my mind, what he is afraid of is, that people\nshould be afraid of him.  If he wins he is in immense good humour; then\nis the time to ask favours of him; and, says the crafty bishop, many a\ntime have I lost the game, and won my cause thereby.  At three begins\nagain the toil of state.  The knockers return, and those who shove them\naway return too; everywhere the litigious crowd murmurs round; and\nfollows him at evening, when he goes to supper, or gets its matters\nsettled by the officers of the court, who have to stay there till bed-\ntime.  At supper, though there are but rarely 'mimici sales,' which I\ncannot translate--some sort of jesting: but biting and cruel insults\n(common at the feasts of the Roman Emperors) are never allowed.  His\ntaste in music is severe.  No water-organs, flute-player, lyrist, cymbal\nor harp-playing woman is allowed.  All he delights in is the old Teutonic\nmusic, whose virtue (says the bishop) soothes the soul no less than does\nits sound the ear.  When he rises from table the guards for the night are\nset, and armed men stand at all the doors, to watch him through the first\nhours of sleep.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IV.--THE GOTHIC CIVILIZER\n\n\nLet us follow the fortunes of Italy and of Rome.  They are not only a\ntype of the fortunes of the whole western world, but the fortunes of that\nworld, as you will see, depend on Rome.\n\nYou must recollect, meanwhile, that by the middle of the fifth century,\nthe Western Empire had ceased to exist.  The Angles and Saxons were\nfighting their way into Britain.  The Franks were settled in north France\nand the lower Rhineland.  South of them, the centre of Gaul still\nremained Roman, governed by Counts of cities, who were all but\nindependent sovereigns, while they confessed a nominal allegiance to the\nEmperor of Constantinople.  Their power was destined soon to be\nannihilated by the conquests of Clovis and his Franks--as false and cruel\nruffians as their sainted king, the first-born son of the Church.  The\nhistory of Gaul for some centuries becomes henceforth a tissue of\ninternecine horrors, which you must read for yourselves in the pages of\nM. Sismondi, or of Gregory of Tours.  The Allemanni (whose name has\nbecome among the Franks the general name for Germans) held the lands from\nthe Maine to the Rhaetian Alps.  The Burgunds, the lands to the south-\nwest of them, comprising the greater part of south-east Gaul.  The West\nGoths held the south-west of Gaul, and the greater part of Spain, having\nthrust the Sueves, and with them some Alans, into Gallicia, Asturias, and\nPortugal; and thrust, also, the Vandals across the straits of Gibraltar,\nto found a prosperous kingdom along the northern shore of Africa.  The\nEast Goths, meanwhile, after various wanderings to the north of the Alps,\nlay in the present Austria and in the Danube lands, resting after their\ngreat struggle with the Huns, and their crowning victory of Netad.\n\nTo follow the fortunes of Italy, we must follow those of these East\nGoths, and especially of one man among them, Theodoric, known in German\nsong as Dietrich of Bern or Verona.\n\nInteresting exceedingly to us should this great hero be.  No man's\nhistory better shows the strange relations between the Teutons and the\ndying Empire: but more; his life is the first instance of a Teuton\nattempting to found a civilized and ordered state, upon experience drawn\nfrom Roman sources; of the young world trying to build itself up some\nsort of dwelling out of the ruins of the old.  Dietrich failed, it is\ntrue.  But if the thing had been then possible, he seems to have been the\nman to have done it.  He lived and laboured like what he was--a royal\nAmal, a true son of Woden.  Unable to write, he founded a great kingdom\nby native virtue and common sense.  Called a barbarian, he restored\nprosperity to ruined Italy, and gave to it (and with it to the greater\npart of the western world), peace for three and thirty years.  Brought up\namong hostile sects, he laid down that golden law of religious liberty\nwhich the nineteenth century has not yet courage and humanity enough to\naccept.  But if his life was heroic, his death was tragic.  He failed\nafter all in his vast endeavours, from causes hidden from him, but\nvisible, and most instructive, to us; and after having toiled impartially\nfor the good of conquerors and of conquered alike, he died sadly, leaving\nbehind him a people who, most of them, believed gladly the news that a\nholy hermit had seen his soul hurled down the crater of Stromboli, as a\njust punishment for the inexpiable crime of being wiser than his\ngeneration.\n\nSome have complained of Gibbon's 'hero-worship' of Dietrich--I do not.\nThe honest and accurate cynic so very seldom worshipped a hero, or\nbelieved in the existence of any, that we may take his good opinion as\nalmost final and without appeal.  One author, for whose opinion I have\nalready exprest a very high respect, says that he was but a wild man of\nthe woods to the last; polished over skin-deep with Roman civilization;\n'Scratch him, and you found the barbarian underneath {101}.'  It may be\ntrue.  If it be true, it is a very high compliment.  It was not from his\nRoman civilization, but from his 'barbarian' mother and father, that he\ndrew the 'vive intelligence des choses morales, et ces inspirations\nelevees et heroiques,' which M. Thierry truly attributes to him.  If\nthere was, as M. Thierry truly says, another nature struggling within\nhim--is there not such in every man?  And are not the struggles the more\npainful, the temptations more dangerous, the inconsistencies too often\nthe more shameful, the capacities for evil as well as for good, more\nhuge, just in proportion to the native force and massiveness of the soul?\nThe doctrine may seem dangerous.  It is dangerous, like many truths; and\nwoe to those who, being unlearned and unstable, wrest it to their own\ndestruction; and presume upon it to indulge their own passions under\nByronic excuses of 'genius,' or 'muscular Christianity.'  But it is true\nnevertheless: so at least the Bible tells us, in its wonderful\ndelineations of David, 'the man after God's own heart,' and of St. Peter,\nthe chief of the apostles.  And there are points of likeness between the\ncharacter of Dietrich, and that of David, which will surely suggest\nthemselves to any acute student of human nature.  M. Thierry attributes\nto him, as his worse self, 'les instincts les plus violents; la cruaute,\nl'astuce, l'egoisme impitoyable.'  The two first counts are undeniable--at\nleast during his youth: they were the common vices of the age.  The two\nlatter I must hold as not proven by facts: but were they proven, they\nwould still be excusable, on the simple ground of his Greek education.\n'Cunning and pitiless egotism' were the only moral qualities which\nDietrich is likely to have seen exercised at the court of Constantinople:\nand what wonder, if he was somewhat demoralized by the abominable\natmosphere which he breathed from childhood?  Dietrich is an illustration\nof the saga with which these lectures began.  He is the very type of the\nforest child, bewitched by the fine things of the wicked Troll garden.\nThe key to the man's character, indeed the very glory of it, is the long\nstruggle within him, between the Teutonic and the Greek elements.  Dazzled\nand debauched, at times, by the sinful glories of the Bosphorus, its\npalaces, its gold, and its women, he will break the spell desperately.  He\nwill become a wild Goth and an honest man once more; he will revenge his\nown degradation on that court and empire which he knows well enough to\ndespise, distrust and hate.  Again and again the spell comes over him.\nHis vanity and his passions make him once more a courtier among the\nGreeks; but the blood of Odin is strong within him still; again and again\nhe rises, with a noble shame, to virtue and patriotism, trampling under\nfoot selfish luxury and glory, till the victory is complete; and he turns\naway in the very moment of the greatest temptation, from the bewitching\ncity, to wander, fight, starve, and at last conquer a new land for\nhimself and for his nation; and shew, by thirty years of justice and\nwisdom, what that true Dietrich was, which had been so long overlaid by\nthe false Dietrich of his sinful youth.\n\nLook at the facts of his history, as they stand, and see whether they do\nnot bear out this, and no other, theory of his character.\n\nThe year was 455, two years after Attila's death.  Near Vienna a boy was\nborn, of Theodemir one of the Gothic kings and his favourite Erleva.  He\nwas sent when eight years old to Constantinople as a hostage.  The\nEmperor Leo had agreed to pay the Goths 300 pounds of gold every year, if\nthey would but leave him in peace; and young Dietrich was the pledge of\nthe compact.  There he grew up amid all the wisdom of the Romans,\nwatching it all, and yet never even learning to write.  It seems to some\nthat the German did not care to learn; it seems to me rather that they\ndid not care to teach.  He came back to his people at eighteen, delighted\nthem by his strength and stature, and became, to all appearance, a Goth\nof the Goths; going adventures with six thousand volunteers against the\nSarmatae, who had just defeated the Greeks, and taken a city--which he\nretook, but instead of restoring it to the Emperor, kept himself.  Food\nbecoming scarce in Austria, the Ostrogoths moved some into Italy, some\ndown on Illyria and Thessaly; and the Emperor gracefully presented them\nwith the country of which they had already taken possession.\n\nIn every case, you see, this method went on.  The failing Emperors bought\noff the Teutons where they could; submitted to them where they could not;\nand readily enough turned on them when they had a chance.  The relations\nbetween the two parties can be hardly better explained, than by comparing\nthem to those between the English adventurers in Hindostan and the\nfalling Rajahs and Sultans of the last century.\n\nAfter a while Theodoric, or Dietrich, found himself, at his father's\ndeath, sole king of the Ostrogoths.  This period of his life is very\nobscure: but one hint at least we have, which may explain his whole\nfuture career.  Side by side with him and with his father before him,\nthere was another Dietrich--Dietrich the One-eyed, son of Triar, a low-\nborn adventurer, who had got together the remnants of some low-caste\ntribes, who were called the Goths of Thrace, and was swaggering about the\ncourt of Constantinople, as, when the East Goths first met him, what we\ncall Warden of the Marches, with some annual pay for his Goths.  He was\ninsolent to Theodemir and his family, and they retaliated by bitter\nhatred.  It was intolerable for them, Amals, sons of Odin, to be insulted\nby this upstart.  So they went on for years, till the miserable religious\nsquabble fell out--you may read it in Gibbon--which ended in the Emperor\nZeno, a low-born and cunning man, suspected of the murder of his own son\nby the princess Ariadne, being driven out of Constantinople by\nBasiliscus.  We need not enter into such matters, except as far as they\nbear on the history of Dietrich the Amal.  Dietrich the One-eyed helped\nBasiliscus--and then Zeno seems to have sent for Dietrich the Amal to\nhelp him.  He came, but too late.  Basiliscus' party had already broken\nup; Basiliscus and his family had taken refuge in a church, from whence\nZeno enticed him, on the promise of shedding no blood, which he did not:\nbut instead, put him, his wife and children, in a dry cistern, walled it\nup and left them.\n\nDietrich the Amal rose into power and great glory, and became 'son-in-\narms' to the Emperor.  But the young Amal longed for adventures.  He\noffered to take his Ostrogoths into Italy, drive out Odoacer, and seat on\nthe throne of the West, Nepos, one of the many puppets who had been\nhurled off it a few years before.  Zeno had need of the young hero nearer\nhome, and persuaded him to stay in Constantinople, eat, drink, and be\nmerry.\n\nWhereon Odoacer made Romulus Agustulus and the Roman Senate write to Zeno\nthat they wanted no Emperor save him at Constantinople; that they were\nvery happy under the excellent Odoacer, and that they therefore sent to\nZeno, as the rightful owner, all the Imperial insignia and ornaments;\nthings which may have been worn, some of them, by Augustus himself.  And\nso ended, even in name, the Empire of Rome.  All which the Amal saw, and,\nas will appear, did not forget.\n\nZeno gave the Amal all that the One-eyed had had before him, and paid the\nOstrogoths yearly as he had paid the One-eye's men.  The One-eyed was\nbanished to his cantonments, and of course revolted.  Zeno wanted to buy\nhim off, but the Amal would not hear of it; he would not help the Romans\nagainst his rival, unless they swore perpetual enmity against him.\n\nThey did so, and he marched to the assistance of the wretched Empire.  He\nwas to be met by Roman reinforcements at the Haemus.  They never came;\nand the Amal, disgusted and disheartened, found himself entangled in the\ndefiles of the Haemus, starving and worn out; with the One-eyed\nentrenched on an inaccessible rock, where he dared not attack him.\n\nThen followed an extraordinary scene.  The One-eyed came down again and\nagain from his rock, and rode round the Amal's camp, shouting to him\nwords so true, that one must believe them to have been really spoken.\n\n'Perjured boy, madman, betrayer of your race--do you not see that the\nRoman plan is as always to destroy Goths by Goths?  Whichever of us\nfalls, they, not we, will be the stronger.  They never met you as they\npromised, at the cities, nor here.  They have sent you out here to perish\nin the desert.'\n\nThen the East Goths raised a cry.  'The One-eyed is right.  The Amal\ncares not that these men are Goths like ourselves.'\n\nThen the One-eyed appeals to the Goths themselves, as he curses the Amal.\n\n'Why are you killing your kinsmen?  Why have you made so many widows?\nWhere is all their wealth gone, they who set out to fight for you?  Each\nof them had two or three horses: but now they are walking on foot behind\nyou like slaves,--free-men as well-born as yourself:--and you promised to\nmeasure them out gold by the bushel.'\n\nWas it not true?  If young Dietrich had in him (and he shewed that he had\nin after years) a Teuton's heart, may not that strange interview have\nopened his eyes to his own folly, and taught him that the Teuton must be\nhis own master, and not the mercenary of the Romans?\n\nThe men cried out that it was true.  He must make peace with the\nOne-eyed, or they would do it themselves; and peace was made.  They both\nsent ambassadors to Zeno; the Amal complaining of treachery; the One-eyed\ndemanding indemnity for all his losses.  The Emperor was furious.  He\ntried to buy off the Amal by marrying him to a princess of the blood\nroyal, and making him a Caesar.  Dietrich would not consent; he felt that\nit was a snare.  Zeno proclaimed the One-eyed an enemy to the Empire; and\nended by reinstating him in his old honours, and taking them from the\nAmal.  The Amal became furious, burnt villages, slaughtered the peasants,\neven (the Greeks say) cut off the hands of his captives.  He had broken\nwith the Romans at last.  The Roman was astride of him, and of all\nTeutons, like Sindbad's old man of the sea.  The only question, as with\nSindbad, was whether he should get drunk, and give them a chance of\nthrowing the perfidious tyrant.  And now the time was come.  He was\ncompelled to ask himself, not--what shall I be in relation to myself: but\nwhat shall I be in relation to the Kaiser of the Romans--a mercenary, a\nslave, or a conqueror--for one of the three I must be?\n\nSo it went on, year after year--sometimes with terrible reverses for\nDietrich, till the year 480.  Then the old One-eyed died, in a strange\nway.  Mounting a wild horse at the tent-door, the beast reared before he\ncould get his seat; afraid of pulling it over by the curb, he let it go.\nA lance, in Gothic fashion, was hanging at the tent-door, and the horse\nplunged the One-eyed against it.  The point went deep into his side, and\nthe old fighting man was at rest for ever.\n\nAnd then came a strange peripeteia for the Amal.  Zeno, we know not why,\nsent instantly for him.  He had been ravaging, pursuing, defeating Roman\ntroops, or being defeated by them.  Now he must come to Rome.  His Goths\nshould have the Lower Danube.  He should have glory and honour to spare.\nHe came.  His ideal, at this time, seems actually to have been to live\nlike a Roman citizen in Constantinople, and help to govern the Empire.\nRecollect, he was still little more than five and twenty years old.\n\nSo he went to Constantinople, and I suppose with him the faithful mother,\nand faithful sister, who had been with him in all his wanderings.  He had\na triumph decreed him at the Emperor's expense, was made Consul\nOrdinarius ('which,' saith Jornandes, 'is accounted the highest good and\nchief glory in the world') and Master-general, and lodged in the palace.\n\nWhat did it all mean?  Dietrich was dazzled by it, at least for a while.\nWhat it meant, he found out too soon.  He was to fight the Emperor's\nbattles against all rebels, and he fought them, to return irritated,\ncomplaining (justly or unjustly) of plots against his life; to be\npacified, like a child, with the honour of an equestrian statue; then to\nsink down into Byzantine luxury for seven inglorious years, with only one\nflashing out of the ancient spirit, when he demanded to go alone against\nthe Bulgars, and killed their king with his own hand.\n\nWhat woke him from his dream?  The cry of his starving people.\n\nThe Goths, settled on the lower Danube, had been living, as wild men and\nmercenaries live, recklessly from hand to mouth, drinking and gambling\ntill their families were in want.  They send to the Amal.  'While thou\nart revelling at Roman banquets, we are starving--come back ere we are\nruined.'\n\nThey were jealous, too, of the success of Odoacer and his mercenaries.  He\nwas growing now to be a great power; styling himself 'King of nations\n{109},' giving away to the Visigoths the Narbonnaise, the last remnant of\nthe Western Empire; collecting round him learned Romans like Symmachus,\nBoethius, and Cassiodorus; respecting the Catholic clergy; and seemingly\ndoing his best to govern well.  His mercenaries, however, would not be\ngoverned.  Under their violence and oppression agriculture and population\nwere both failing; till Pope Gelasius speaks of 'AEmilia, Tuscia,\nceteraeque provinciae in quibus nullus prope hominum existit.'\n\nMeanwhile there seems to have been a deep hatred on the part of the Goths\nto Odoacer and his mercenaries.  Dr. Sheppard thinks that they despised\nhim himself as a man of low birth.  But his father AEdecon had been chief\nof the Turklings, and was most probably of royal blood.  It is very\nunlikely, indeed, that so large a number of Teutons would have followed\nany man who had not Odin's blood in his veins.  Was there a stain on\nOdoacer from his early connexion with Attila?  Or was the hatred against\nhis men more than himself, contempt especially of the low-caste\nHerules,--a question of race, springing out of those miserable\ntribe-feuds, which kept the Teutons always divided and weak?  Be that as\nit may, Odoacer had done a deed which raised this hatred to open fury.  He\nhad gone over the Alps into Rugiland (then Noricum, and the neighbourhood\nof Vienna) and utterly destroyed those of the Rugier who had not gone\ninto Italy under his banner.  They had plundered, it is said, the cell of\nhis old friend St. Severinus, as soon as the saint died, of the garments\nlaid up for the poor, and a silver cup, and the sacred vessels of the\nmass.  Be that as it may, Odoacer utterly exterminated them, and carried\ntheir king Feletheus, or Fava, back to Italy, with Gisa his 'noxious\nwife;' and with them many Roman Christians, and (seemingly) the body of\nSt. Severinus himself.  But this had been a small thing, if he had not\nadvised himself to have a regular Roman triumph, with Fava, the captive\nking, walking beside his chariot; and afterwards, in the approved fashion\nof the ancient Romans on such occasions, to put Fava to death in cold\nblood.\n\nThe records of this feat are to be found, as far as I know them, in one\nshort chapter (I. xix.) of Paulus Diaconus, and in Muratori's notes\nthereto; but however small the records, the deed decided the fate of\nItaly.  Frederic, son of Fava, took refuge with the Ostrogoths, and\ndemanded revenge in the name of his royal race; and it is easy to\nconceive that the sympathies of the Goths would be with him.  An attack\n(seemingly unprovoked) on an ancient Teutonic nation by a mere band of\nadventurers was--or could easily be made--a grievous wrong, and clear\ncasus belli, over and above the innate Teutonic lust for fighting and\nadventures, simply for the sake of 'the sport.'\n\nDietrich went back, and from that day, the dream of eastern luxury was\nbroken, and young Dietrich was a Goth again, for good and for evil.\n\nHe assembled the Goths, and marched straight on Constantinople, burning\nand pillaging as he went.  So say, at least, the Greek historians, of\nwhom, all through this strange story, no one need believe more than he\nlikes.  Had the Goths had the writing of the life of Dietrich, we should\nhave heard another tale.  As it is, we have, as it were, a life of Lord\nClive composed by the court scribes of Delhi.\n\nTo no Roman would he tell what was in his mind.  Five leagues from\nConstantinople he paused.  Some say that he had compassion on the city\nwhere he had been brought up.  Who can tell?  He demanded to speak to\nZeno alone, and the father in arms and his wild son met once more.  There\nwas still strong in him the old Teutonic feudal instinct.  He was 'Zeno's\nman,' in spite of all.  He asked (says Jornandes) Zeno's leave to march\nagainst Odoacer, and conquer Italy.  Procopius and the Valesian Fragment\nsay that Zeno sent him, and that in case of success, he was to reign\nthere till Zeno came.  Zeno was, no doubt, glad to get rid of him at any\nprice.  As Ennodius well says, 'Another's honour made him remember his\nown origin, and fear the very legions which obeyed him--for that\nobedience is suspected which serves the unworthy.'  Rome was only\nnominally under Zeno's dominion; and it mattered little to him whether\nHerule or Gothic adventurer called himself his representative.\n\nThen was held a grand function.  Dietrich, solemnly appointed\n'Patrician,' had Italy ceded to him by a 'Pragmatic' sanction, and Zeno\nplaced on his head the sacrum velamen, a square of purple, signifying in\nConstantinople things wonderful, august, imperial--if they could only be\nmade to come to pass.  And he made them come to pass.  He gathered all\nTeutonic heroes of every tribe, as well as his own; and through Roumelia,\nand through the Alps, a long and dangerous journey, went Dietrich and his\nGoths, with their wives and children, and all they had, packed on\nwaggons; living on their flocks and herds, grinding their corn in hand-\nmills, and hunting as they went, for seven hundred miles of march;\nfighting as they went with Bulgars and Sarmatians, who had swarmed into\nthe waste marches of Hungary and Carniola, once populous, cultivated, and\nfull of noble cities; fighting a desperate battle with the Gepidae, up to\ntheir knees in a morass; till over the passes of the Julian Alps, where\nicicles hung upon their beards, and their clothes cracked with frost,\nthey poured into the Venetian plains.  It was a daring deed; and needed a\nspirit like Dietrich's to carry it through.\n\nOdoacer awaited him near the ruins of Aquileia.  On the morning of the\nfight, as he was arming, Dietrich asked his noble mother to bring him\nsome specially fine mantle, which she had embroidered for him, and put it\nover his armour, 'that all men may see how he goes gayer into the fight\nthan ever he did into feast.  For this day she shall see whether she have\nbrought a man-child into the world, or no.'\n\nAnd in front of Verona (where the plain was long white with human bones),\nhe beat Odoacer, and after a short and sharp campaign, drove him to\nRavenna.  But there, Roman fortifications, and Roman artillery, stopped,\nas usual, the Goth; and Odoacer fulfilled his name so well, and stood so\nstout, that he could only be reduced by famine; and at last surrendered\non terms, difficult now to discover.\n\nGibbon says, that there was a regular compact that they should enjoy\nequal authority, and refers to Procopius: but Procopius only says, that\nthey should live together peaceably 'in that city.'  Be that as it may,\nOdoacer and his party were detected, after awhile, conspiring against\nDietrich, and put to death in some dark fashion.  Gibbon, as advocatus\ndiaboli, of course gives the doubt against Dietrich, by his usual\nenthymeme--All men are likely to be rogues, ergo, Dietrich was one.\nRather hard measure, when one remembers that the very men who tell the\nstory are Dietrich's own enemies.  By far the most important of them, the\nauthor of the Valesian Fragment, who considers Dietrich damned as an\nArian, and the murderer of Boethius and Symmachus, says plainly that\nOdoacer plotted against his life.  But it was a dark business at best.\n\nBe that as it may, Dietrich the Amal found himself in one day king of all\nItaly, without a peer.  And now followed a three and thirty years' reign\nof wisdom, justice, and prosperity, unexampled in the history of those\ncenturies.  Between the days of the Antonines and those of Charlemagne, I\nknow no such bright spot in the dark history of Europe.\n\nAs for his transferring the third of the lands of Italy, which had been\nheld by Odoacer's men, to his own Goths,--that was just or unjust (even\nputting out of the question the rights of conquest), according to what\nmanner of men Odoacer's mercenaries were, and what right they had to the\nlands.  At least it was done so, says Cassiodorus, that it notoriously\ngave satisfaction to the Romans themselves.  One can well conceive it.\nOdoacer's men had been lawless adventurers; and now law was installed as\nsupreme.  Dietrich, in his long sojourn at the Emperor's court, had\ndiscovered the true secret of Roman power, which made the Empire terrible\neven in her fallen fortunes; and that was Law.  Law, which tells every\nman what to expect, and what is expected of him; and so gives, if not\ncontent, still confidence, energy, industry.  The Goths were to live by\nthe Gothic law, the Romans by the Roman.  To amalgamate the two races\nwould have been as impossible as to amalgamate English and Hindoos.  The\nparallel is really tolerably exact.  The Goth was very English; and the\nover-civilized, learned, false, profligate Roman was the very counterpart\nof the modern Brahmin.  But there was to be equal justice between man and\nman.  If the Goths were the masters of much of the Roman soil, still\nspoliation and oppression were forbidden; and the remarkable edict or\ncode of Theodoric, shews how deeply into his great mind had sunk the idea\nof the divineness of Law.  It is short, and of Draconic severity,\nespecially against spoliation, cheating, false informers, abuse by the\nclergy of the rights of sanctuary, and all offences against the honour of\nwomen.  I advise you all to study it, as an example of what an early\nTeutonic king thought men ought to do, and could be made to do.\n\nThe Romans were left to their luxury and laziness; and their country\nvillas (long deserted) were filled again by the owners.  The Goths were\nexpected to perform military service, and were drilled from their youth\nin those military evolutions which had so often given the disciplined\nRoman the victory over the undisciplined Goth, till every pomoerium\n(boulevard), says Ennodius, might be seen full of boys and lads, learning\nto be soldiers.  Everything meanwhile was done to soothe the wounded\npride of the conquered.  The senate of Rome was still kept up in name (as\nby Odoacer), her nobles flattered by sonorous titles, and the officers of\nthe kingdom and the palace bore the same names as they would have done\nunder Roman emperors.  The whole was an attempt to develop Dietrich's own\nGoths by the only civilization which he knew, that of Constantinople: but\nto engraft on it an order, a justice, a freedom, a morality, which was\nthe 'barbarian' element.  The treasures of Roman art were placed under\nthe care of government officers; baths, palaces, churches, aqueducts,\nwere repaired or founded; to build seems to have been Dietrich's great\ndelight; and we have left us, on a coin, some image of his own palace at\nVerona, a strange building with domes and minarets, something like a\nTurkish mosque; standing, seemingly, on the arcades of some older Roman\nbuilding.  Dietrich the Goth may, indeed, be called the founder of\n'Byzantine' architecture throughout the Western world.\n\nMeanwhile, agriculture prospered once more; the Pontine Marshes were\ndrained; the imperial ports restored, and new cities sprang up.  'The new\nones,' says Machiavelli, 'were Venice, Siena, Ferrara, Aquileia; and\nthose which became extended were Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Milan, Naples,\nand Bologna.'  Of these the great sea-ports, especially Venice, were\nfounded not by Goths, but by Roman and Greek fugitives: but it was the\nsecurity and liberality of Dietrich's reign which made their existence\npossible; and Venice really owes far more to the barbarian hero, than to\nthe fabled patronage of St. Mark.\n\n'From this devastation and new population,' continues Machiavelli, 'arose\nnew languages, which, partaking of the native idiom of the new people,\nand of the old Roman, formed a new manner of discourse.  Besides, not\nonly were the names of provinces changed, but also of lakes, rivers,\nseas, and men; for France, Spain, and Italy are full of fresh names,\nwholly different from the ancient.'\n\nThis reign of Dietrich was, in fact, the birth-hour of modern Italy; and,\nas Machiavelli says, 'brought the country to such a state of greatness,\nthat her previous sufferings were unrecognizable.'  We shall see\nhereafter how the great Goth's work was all undone; and (to their\neverlasting shame) by whom it was undone.\n\nThe most interesting records of the time are, without doubt, the letters\nof Cassiodorus, the king's secretary and chancellor, which have come down\nto us in great numbers.  There are letters among them on all questions of\ndomestic and foreign policy: to the kings of the Varni, kings of the\nHerules, kings of the Thuringer (who were still heathens beyond the Black\nforest), calling on them all to join him and the Burgundians, and defend\nhis son-in-law Alaric II., king of the Visigoths, against Clovis and his\nFranks.  There are letters, too, bearing on the religious feuds of the\nRoman population, and on the morals and social state of Rome itself, of\nwhich I shall say nothing in this lecture, having cause to refer to them\nhereafter.  But if you wish to know the times, you must read Cassiodorus\nthoroughly.\n\nIn his letters you will remark how most of the so-called Roman names are\nGreek.  You will remark, too, as a sign of the decadence of taste and\nart, that though full of wisdom and practical morality, the letters are\ncouched in the most wonderful bombast to be met with, even in that age of\ninfimae Latinitatis.  One can only explain their style by supposing that\nKing Dietrich, having supplied the sense, left it for Cassiodorus to\nshape it as he thought best; and when the letter was read over to him,\ntook for granted (being no scholar) that that was the way in which Roman\nCaesars and other cultivated personages ought to talk; admired his\nsecretary's learning; and probably laughed in his sleeve at the whole\nthing, thinking that ten words of honest German would have said all that\nhe meant.  As for understanding these flights of rhetoric, it is\nimpossible that Dietrich could have done so: perhaps not even Cassiodorus\nhimself.  Take as one example, such a letter as this.--After a lofty\nmoral maxim, which I leave for you to construe--'In partem pietatis\nrecidit mitigata districtio; et sub beneficio praestat, qui poenam\ndebitam moderatione considerata palpaverit,'--Jovinus the curial is\ninformed, after the most complex method, that having first quarrelled\nwith a fellow-curial, and then proceeded to kill him, he is banished for\nlife to the isle of Volcano, among the Liparis.  As a curial is a\ngentleman and a government magistrate, the punishment is just enough; but\nwhy should Cassiodorus (certainly not King Dietrich) finish a short\nletter by a long dissertation on volcanoes in general, and Stromboli in\nparticular, insisting on the wonder that the rocks, though continually\nburnt, are continually renewed by 'the inextricable potency of nature;'\nand only returning to Jovinus to inform him that he will henceforth\nfollow the example of a salamander, which always lives in fire, 'being so\ncontracted by natural cold, that it is tempered by burning flame.  It is\na thin and small animal, connected with worms, and clothed with a yellow\ncolour;' . . . Cassiodorus then returns to the main subject of volcanoes,\nand ends with a story of Stromboli having broken out just as Hannibal\npoisoned himself at the court of Prusias;--information which may have\nbeen interesting, though not consoling, to poor Jovinus, in the prospect\nof living there; but of which one would like to have had king Dietrich's\nopinion.  Did he felicitate himself like a simple Teuton, on the\nwonderful learning and eloquence of his Greek-Roman secretary?  Or did he\nlaugh a royal laugh at the whole letter, and crack a royal joke at\nCassiodorus and all quill-driving schoolmasters and lawyers--the two\nclasses of men whom the Goths hated especially, and at the end to which\nthey by their pedantries had brought imperial Rome?  One would like to\nknow.  For not only was Dietrich no scholar himself, but he had a\ncontempt for the very scholarship which he employed, and forbade the\nGoths to learn it--as the event proved, a foolish and fatal prejudice.\nBut it was connected in his mind with chicanery, effeminacy, and with the\ncruel and degrading punishments of children.  Perhaps the ferula had been\napplied to him at Constantinople in old days.  If so, no wonder that he\nnever learnt to write.  'The boy who trembles at a cane,' he used to say,\n'will never face a lance.'  His mother wit, meanwhile, was so shrewd that\n'many of his sayings (says the unknown author of the invaluable Valesian\nFragment) remain among us to this day.'  Two only, as far as I know, have\nbeen preserved, quaint enough:\n\n   'He that hath gold, or a devil, cannot hide it.'\n\nAnd\n\n   'The Roman, when poor, apes the Goth: the Goth,\n   when rich, apes the Roman.'\n\nThere is a sort of Solomon's judgment, too, told of him, in the case of a\nwoman who refused to acknowledge her own son, which was effectual enough;\nbut somewhat too homely to repeat.\n\nAs for his personal appearance, it was given in a saga; but I have not\nconsulted it myself, and am no judge of its authenticity.  The\ntraditional description of him is that of a man almost beardless--a rare\ncase among the Goths--with masses of golden ringlets, and black eyebrows\nover 'oculos caesios,' the blue grey eyes common to so many conquerors.  A\ncomplexion so peculiar, that one must believe it to be truly reported.\n\nHis tragic death, and the yet more tragic consequences thereof, will be\ndetailed in the next lecture.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE V--DIETRICH'S END.\n\n\nI have now to speak to you on the latter end of Dietrich's reign--made so\nsadly famous by the death of Boethius--the last Roman philosopher, as he\nhas been called for centuries, and not unjustly.  His De Consolatione\nPhilosophiae is a book good for any man, full of wholesome and godly\ndoctrine.  For centuries it ranked as high as the highest classics;\nhigher perhaps at times than any book save the Bible, among not merely\nscholars, but statesmen.  It is the last legacy of the dying old world to\nthe young world which was trampling it out of life; and therefore it is\nfull of sadness.  But beneath the sadness there is faith and hope; for\nGod is just, and virtue must be triumphant and immortal, and the absolute\nand only good for man.  The whole story is very sad.  Dietrich was one of\nthose great men, who like Henry VIII, Elizabeth, Napoleon, or the late\nCzar Nicholas, have lived too long for their own honour.  The old heathen\nwould have attributed his misadventures to a [Greek text], an envy of the\nGods, who will not abide to see men as prosperous as they themselves are.\nWe may attribute it more simply and more piously to the wear and tear of\nfrail humanity.  For it may be that very few human souls can stand for\nmany years the strain of a great rule.  I do not mean that they break\ndown from overwork, but that they are pulled out of shape by it; and\nthat, especially, the will becomes enormously developed at the expense of\nthe other powers of the soul, till the man becomes, as he grows older,\nimperious, careless of, or irritated by counsel, determined to have his\nown way because it is his own way.  We see the same tendency in all\naccustomed for a long while to absolute rule, even in petty matters;--in\nthe old ship's captain, the old head of a factory, the old master of\nhounds; and we do not blame them for it.  It is a disease incident to\ntheir calling, as pedantry is to that of a scholar, or astuteness to that\nof an attorney.  But it is most dangerous in the greatest minds, and in\nthe highest places; and only to be kept off by them, as by us, each in\nour place, by honest self-examination, diligent prayer, and the grace of\nGod which comes thereby.  Once or twice in the world's history a great\nruler, like Charles the Fifth, cuts the Gordian knot, and escapes into a\nconvent: but how few can or ought to do that?  There are those who must\ngo on ruling, or see their country ruined; for all depends on them.  So\nhad Queen Elizabeth to do; so had Dietrich of Bern likewise.  After them\nwould come the deluge, and did come; and they must endure to the last,\nwhatever it may cost to their own health of character, or peace of mind.\n\nBut most painful, and most dangerous to the veteran sovereign, is it to\nhave learnt to suspect, perhaps to despise, those whom he rules; to have\nthrown away all his labour upon knaves and fools; to have cast his pearls\nbefore swine, and find them turning again and rending him.  That feeling,\nforced from Queen Elizabeth, in her old age, that tragic cry, 'I am a\nmiserable forlorn woman.  There is none about me whom I can trust.'  She\nwas a woman, always longing for some one to love; and her heart broke\nunder it all.  But do you not see that where the ruler is not an\naffectionate woman, but a strong proud man, the effect may be very\ndifferent, and very terrible?--how, roused to indignation, scorn,\nsuspicion, rage, he may turn to bay against his own subjects, with\n'Scoundrels! you have seen the fair side of my character, and in vain.\nNow you shall see the foul, and beware for yourselves.'\n\nEven so, I fancy, did old Dietrich turn to bay, and did deeds which have\nblackened his name for ever.  Heaven forgive him! for surely he had\nprovocation enough and to spare.\n\nI have told you of the simple, half-superstitious respect which the\nTeuton had for the prestige of Rome.  Dietrich seems to have partaken of\nit, like the rest.  Else why did he not set himself up as Caesar of Rome?\nWhy did he always consider himself as son-in-arms, and quasi-vassal, of\nthe Caesar of Constantinople?  He had been in youth overawed by the\ncunning civilization which he had seen in the great city.  He felt, with\na noble modesty, that he could not emulate it.  He must copy it afar off.\nHe must take to his counsels men like Cassiodorus, Symmachus, Boethius,\nborn and bred in it; trained from childhood in the craft by which, as a\npatent fact, the Kaisers of Rome had been for centuries, even in their\ndecay and degradation, the rulers of the nations.  Yet beneath that there\nmust have been a perpetual under-current of contempt for it and for\nRome--the 'colluvies gentium'--the sink of the nations, with its conceit,\nits pomposity, its beggary, its profligacy, its superstition, its\npretence of preserving the Roman law and rights, while practically it\ncared for no law nor right at all.  Dietrich had had to write letter upon\nletter, to prevent the green and blue factions cutting each other's\nthroats at the public spectacles; letters to the tribunus voluptatum, who\nhad to look after the pantomimes and loose women, telling him to keep the\npoor wretches in some decent order, and to set them and the city an\nexample of a better life, by being a chaste and respectable man himself.\nLetter upon letter of Cassiodorus', written in Dietrich's name, disclose\na state of things in Rome on which a Goth could look only with disgust\nand contempt.\n\nAnd what if he discovered (or thought that he discovered) that these\nprating coxcombs--who were actually living on government bounty, and had\ntheir daily bread, daily bath, daily oil, daily pork, daily wine, found\nfor them at government expense, while they lounged from the theatre to\nthe church, and the church to the theatre--were plotting with Justin the\nscoundrel and upstart Emperor at Constantinople, to restore forsooth the\nliberties of Rome?  And that that was their answer to his three and\nthirty years of good government, respect, indulgence, which had raised\nthem up again out of all the miseries of domestic anarchy and foreign\ninvasion?\n\nAnd what if he discovered (or thought that he discovered) that the\nCatholic Clergy, with Pope John at their head, were in the very same plot\nfor bringing in the Emperor of Constantinople, on the grounds of\nreligion; because he was persecuting the Arian Goths at Constantinople,\nand therefore would help them to persecute them in Italy?  And that that\nwas their answer to his three and thirty years of unexampled religious\nliberty?  Would not those two facts (even the belief that they were\nfacts) have been enough to drive many a wise man mad?\n\nHow far they were facts, we never shall exactly know.  Almost all our\ninformation comes from Catholic historians--and he would be a rash man\nwho would pin his faith on any statement of theirs concerning the actions\nof a heretic.  But I think, even with no other help than theirs, we may\nsee why Dietrich would have looked with horror on any intimacy between\nthe Church of Rome and the Court of Constantinople.\n\nWe must remember first what the Greek Empire was then, and who was the\nnew Emperor.  Anastasius the poor old Emperor, dying at eighty with his\nheart broken by monks and priests, had an ugly dream; and told it to\nAmantius the eunuch and lord chamberlain.  Whereon Amantius said he had\nhad a dream too;--how a great hog flew at him as he was in waiting in the\nvery presence, and threw him down and eat him fairly up.  Which came\ntrue--though not in the way Amantius expected.  On the death of\nAnastasius he determined to set up as Emperor a creature of his own.  For\nthis purpose he must buy the guards; to which noble end he put a large\nsum of treasure into the hands of Justin, senator, and commander-in-chief\nof the said guards, who takes the money, and spends it on his own\naccount; so that the miserable eunuch finds, not his man, but Justin\nhimself, Emperor, and his hard-earned money spent against him.  The mere\nrise of this unscrupulous swindler and his still more unscrupulous\nnephew, Justinian, would have been enough to rouse Dietrich's suspicion,\nif not fear.\n\nDeep and unspeakable must have been the royal Amal's contempt for the\nman.  For he must have known him well at Constantinople in his youth;\nknown how he was a Goth or other Teuton after all, though he was called a\nDardanian; how his real name was Uprauda (upright), the son of\nStock--which Uprauda he had latinized into Justinus.  The Amal knew well\nhow he had entered the Emperor's guard; how he had intrigued and fought\nhis way up (for the man did not lack courage and conduct) to his\ngeneral's commission; and now, by a crowning act of roguery, to the\nEmpire.  He had known too, most probably, the man's vulgar peasant wife,\nwho, in her efforts to ape royalty, was making herself the laughing-stock\nof the people, and who was urging on her already willing husband to\npersecute.  And this man he saw ready to convulse his own Empire by\nbeginning a violent persecution against the Arians.  He was dangerous\nenough as a villain, doubly dangerous as a bigot also.\n\nWe must remember next what the Greek Church was then; a chaos of\nintrigue, villainy, slander, and wild fury, tearing to pieces itself and\nthe whole Empire by religious feuds, in which the doctrine in question\nbecomes invisible amid the passions and crimes of the disputants, while\nthe Lords of the Church were hordes of wild monks, who swarm out of their\ndens to head the lowest mobs, or fight pitched battles with each other.\nThe ecclesiastical history of the fifth century in the Eastern Empire is\none, which not even the genius of a Gibbon or a Milman can make\ninteresting, or even intelligible.\n\nRecollect that Dietrich had seen much of this with his own eyes; had seen\nactually, as I told you, the rebellion of Basiliscus and the Eutychian\nBishops headed by the mad Daniel the Stylite against his foster father\nthe Emperor Zeno; had seen that Emperor (as Dean Milman forcibly puts it)\n'flying before a naked hermit, who had lost the use of his legs by\nstanding sixteen years upon a column.'  Recollect that Dietrich and his\nGoths had helped to restore that Emperor to his throne; and then\nunderstand in what a school he had learnt his great ideas of religious\ntoleration: how deep must have been the determination to have no such\ndoings in his kingdom; how deep, too, the dread of any similar outbreak\nat Rome.\n\nRecollect, also, that now in his old age he had just witnessed the same\niniquities again rending the Eastern Empire; the old Emperor Anastasius\nhunted to death by armies of mad monks about the Monophysite Heresy; the\ncities, even the holiest places of the East, stained with Christian\nblood; everywhere mob-law, murder, treachery, assassination even in the\nhouse of God; and now the new Emperor Justin was throwing himself into\nthe party of the Orthodox with all the blind rage of an ignorant peasant;\npersecuting, expelling, shutting up the Arian Churches of the Goths,\nrefusing to hear Dietrich's noble appeals; and evidently organizing a\ngreat movement against those peaceable Arians, against whom, during the\nlife-time of Dietrich, their bitterest enemies do not allege a single\ncase of persecution.\n\nRemember, too, that Dietrich had had experience of similar outbreaks of\nfanaticism at Rome; that the ordination of two rival Popes had once made\nthe streets run with blood; that he had seen priests murdered,\nmonasteries fired, nuns insulted, and had had to interfere with the\nstrong arm of the law, and himself decide in favour of the Pope who had\nthe most votes, and was first chosen; and that in the quarrels,\nintrigues, and slanders, which followed that election, he had had too\ngood proof that the ecclesiastics and the mob of Rome, if he but let\nthem, could behave as ill as that of Constantinople; and, moreover, that\nthis new Pope John, who seems to have been a hot-headed fanatic, had\nbegun his rule by whipping and banishing Manichees--by whose permission,\ndoes not appear.\n\nRecollect too, that for some reason or other, Dietrich, when he had\ninterfered in Eastern matters, had been always on the side of the\nOrthodox and the Council of Chalcedon.  He had fought for the Orthodox\nagainst Basiliscus.  He had backed the Orthodox and Vitalianus their\nchampion, against the late Emperor Anastasius; and now as soon as the\nOrthodox got into power under Justin, this was the reward of his\nimpartiality.  If he did not distrust and despise the Church and Emperor\nof the East, he must have been not a hero, but a saint.\n\nRecollect, too, that in those very days, Catholic bigotry had broken out\nin a general plunder of the Jews.  At Rome, at Milan, and Genoa their\nhouses had been sacked, and their synagogues burnt; and Dietrich, having\ncompelled the Catholics to rebuild them at their own expense, had earned\nthe hatred of a large portion of his subjects.  And now Pope John was\ndoing all he could to thwart him.  Dietrich bade him go to\nConstantinople, and plead with Justin for the persecuted Arians.  He\nrefused.  Dietrich shipt him off, nolentem volentem.  But when he got to\nConstantinople he threw his whole weight into the Emperor's scale.  He\nwas received by Justin as if he was St. Peter himself, the Emperor coming\nout to meet him with processions and wax-lights, imploring his blessing;\nhe did exactly the opposite to what Dietrich bade him do; and published\non his return a furious epistle to the bishops of Italy, calling upon\nthem to oppress and extirpate the Arian perfidy, so that no root of it is\nleft: to consecrate the Arian churches wheresoever he found them,\npleading the advice of the most pious and Christian Emperor Justin,\ntalking of Dietrich as tainted inwardly and wrapt up outwardly with the\npest of heresy.  On which Cochlaeus (who religiously believes that\nDietrich was damned for his Arianism, and that all his virtues went for\nnothing because he had not charity, which exists, he says, alone within\nthe pale of the Church), cannot help the naive comment, that if the\nPontiff did really write that letter, he cannot wonder at Dietrich's\nbeing a little angry.  Kings now, it is true, can afford to smile at such\noutbursts; they could not afford to do so in Dietrich's days.  Such words\nmeant murder, pillage, civil war, dethronement, general anarchy; and so\nDietrich threw Pope John into prison.  He had been in bad health before\nhe sailed to Constantinople, and in a few months he died, and was\nworshipped as a saint.\n\nAs for the political conspiracy, we shall never know the truth of it.  The\n'Anonymus Valesii,' meanwhile says, that when Cyprian accused Albinus,\nBoethius answered, 'It is false: but if Albinus has done it, so have I,\nand the whole senate, with one consent.  It is false, my Lord King!'\nWhatever such words may prove, they prove at least this, that Boethius,\nas he says himself, was the victim of his own chivalry.  To save Albinus,\nand the senate, he thrust himself into the fore-front of the battle, and\nfell at least like a brave man.  Whether Albinus, Boethius, and Symmachus\ndid plot to bring in Justin; whether the senate did send a letter to him,\nI cannot tell.  Boethius, in his De Consolatione, denies it all; and\nBoethius was a good man.  He says that the letters in which he hoped for\nthe liberty of Rome were forged; how could he hope for the impossible?\nbut he adds, 'would that any liberty could have been hoped for!  I would\nhave answered the king as Cassius did, when falsely accused of conspiring\nby Caligula: \"If I had known of it, you should not.\"'  One knows not\nwhether Dietrich ever saw those words: but they prove at least that all\nhis confidence, justice, kindness to the patrician philosopher, had not\nwon him from the pardonable conceit about the Romani nominis umbram.\n\nBoethius' story is most probably true.  One cannot think that that man\nwould die with a lie in his mouth.  One cannot pass by, as the utterances\nof a deliberate hypocrisy, those touching appeals to his guiding\nmistress, that heavenly wisdom who has led him so long upon the paths of\ntruth and virtue, and who seems to him, in his miserable cell, to have\nbetrayed him in his hour of need.  Heaven forbid.  Better to believe that\nDietrich committed once in his life, a fearful crime, than that good\nBoethius' famous book is such another as the Eikon Basilike.\n\nBoethius, again, says that the Gothic courtiers hated him, and suborned\nbranded scoundrels to swear away his life and that of the senate, because\nhe had opposed 'the hounds of the palace,' Amigast, Trigulla, and other\ngreedy barbarians.  There was, of course, a Gothic party and a Roman\nparty about the court; and each hated the other bitterly.  Dietrich had\nfavoured the Romans.  But the Goths could not have seen such men as\nSymmachus and Boethius the confidants and counsellors of the Amal,\nwithout longing for their downfall; and if, as Boethius and the Catholic\nhistorians say, the whole tragedy arose out of a Gothic plot to destroy\nthe Roman party, such things have happened but too often in the world's\nhistory.  The only facts which make against the story are, that Cyprianus\nthe accuser was a Roman, and that Cassiodorus, who must have belonged to\nthe Roman party, not only is never mentioned during the whole tragedy,\nbut was high in power under Theodatus and Athalaric afterwards.\n\nAdd to this, that there were vague but wide-spread reports that the Goths\nwere in danger; that Dietrich at least could not be ignorant of the\nambition and the talents of that terrible Justinian, Justin's nephew, who\nwas soon to alter, for a generation, the fortunes of the whole Empire,\nand to sweep the Goths from Italy; that men's minds must have been\nperplexed with fear of change, when they recollected that Dietrich was\nseventy years old, without a son to succeed him, and that a woman and a\nchild would soon rule that great people in a crisis, which they could not\nbut foresee.  We know that the ruin came; is it unreasonable to suppose\nthat the Goths foresaw it, and made a desperate, it may be a treacherous,\neffort to crush once and for all, the proud and not less treacherous\nsenators of Rome?\n\nSo, maddened with the fancied discovery that the man whom he had\nhonoured, trusted, loved, was conspiring against him, Dietrich sent\nBoethius to prison.  He seems, however, not to have been eager for his\ndeath; for Boethius remained there long enough to write his noble book.\n\nHowever, whether fresh proofs of his supposed guilt were discovered or\nnot, the day came when he must die.  A cord was twisted round his head\n(probably to extort confession), till his eyes burst from their sockets,\nand then he was put out of his misery by a club; and so ended the last\nRoman philosopher.  Symmachus, his father-in-law, was beheaded; and Pope\nJohn, as we have heard, was thrown into prison on his return, and died\nafter a few months.  These are the tragedies which have stained for ever\nthe name of 'Theodoric the Great.'\n\nPope John seems to have fairly earned his imprisonment.  For the two\nothers, we can only, I fear, join in the sacred pity in which their\nmemories have been embalmed to all succeeding generations.  But we must\nrecollect, that after all, we know but one side of the question.  The\nRomans could write; the Goths could not: they may have been able to make\nout a fair case for themselves; they may have believed truly in the guilt\nof Boethius; and if they did, nothing less could have happened, by such\nrules of public law and justice as were then in vogue, than did happen.\n\nBe that as it may, the deed was done; and the punishment, if deserved,\ncame soon enough.  Sitting at dinner (so the story runs), the head of a\nfish took in Dietrich's fancy the shape of Symmachus' head, the upper\nteeth biting the lip, the great eyes staring at him.  He sprang up in\nhorror; took to his bed; and there, complaining of a mortal chill,\nwrapping himself up in heaps of blankets, and bewailing to his physician\nthe death of his two victims, he died sadly in a few days.  And a certain\nholy hermit, name not given, nor date of the vision, saw the ghosts of\nBoethius and Symmachus lead the Amal's soul up the cone of Stromboli, and\nhurl him in, as the English sailors saw old Boots, the Wapping usurer,\nhurled into the same place, for offences far more capable of proof.\n\nSo runs the story of Dietrich's death.  It is perfectly natural, and very\nlikely true.  His contemporaries, who all believed it, saw in it proof of\nhis enormous guilt, and the manifest judgment of God.  We shall rather\nsee in it a proof of the earnest, child-like, honest nature of the man,\nstartled into boundless horror and self-abasement, by the sudden\nrevelation of his crime.  Truly bad men die easier deaths than that; and\ngo down to the grave, for the most part, blind and self-contented, and,\nas they think, unpunished; and perhaps forgiven.\n\nAfter Dietrich came the deluge.  The royal head was gone.  The royal\nheart remained in Amalasuentha 'the heavenly beauty,' a daughter worthy\nof her father.\n\nOne of her first acts was to restore to the widows and children of the\ntwo victims the estates which Dietrich had confiscated.  That may, or may\nnot, prove that she thought the men innocent.  She may have only felt it\nroyal not to visit the sins of the fathers on the children; and those\nfathers, too, her own friends and preceptors.  Beautiful, learned, and\nwise, she too was, like her father, before her age.  She, the pupil of\nBoethius, would needs bring up her son Athalaric in Roman learning, and\nfavour the Romans in all ways; never putting to death or even fining any\nof them, and keeping down the rough Goths, who were ready enough, now\nDietrich's hand was off them, to ill-use the conquered Italians.  The\nGoths soon grew to dislike her, and her Roman tendencies, her Roman\neducation of the lad.  One day she boxed his ears for some fault.  He ran\ncrying out into the Heldensaal, and complained to the heroes.  They sent\na deputation to Amalasuentha, insolent enough.  'The boy should not be\nmade a scholar of.'  'She meant to kill the boy and marry again.  Had not\nold Dietrich forbidden free Goths to go to schoolmasters, and said, that\nthe boy who was taught to tremble at a cane, would never face a lance?'\nSo they took the lad away from the women, and made a ruffian of him.  What\nwith drink, women, idleness, and the company of wild young fellows like\nhimself, he was early ruined, body and soul.  Poor Amalasuentha, not\nknowing whither to turn, took the desperate resolution of offering Italy\nto the Emperor Justinian.  She did not know that her cousin Theodatus had\nbeen beforehand with her--a bad old man, greedy and unjust, whose\nrapacity she had had to control again and again, and who hated her in\nreturn.  Both send messages to Justinian.  The wily Emperor gave no\ndirect answer: but sent his ambassador to watch the course of events.  The\nyoung prince died of debauchery, and the Goths whispered that his mother\nhad poisoned him.  Meanwhile Theodatus went on from bad to worse;\naccusations flowed in to Amalasuentha of his lawless rapacity: but he was\ntoo strong for her; and she, losing her head more and more, made the\ndesperate resolve of marrying him, as the only way to keep him quiet.  He\nwas the last male heir of the royal Amalungs.  The marriage would set him\nright in the eyes of the Goths, while it would free her from the\nsuspicion of having murdered her son, in order to reign alone.  Theodatus\nmeanwhile was to have the name of royalty; but she was to keep the power\nand the money--a foolish, confused plan, which could have but one ending.\nTheodatus married her of course, and then cast her into prison, seized\nall her treasures, and threw himself into the arms of that party among\nthe Goths, who hated Amalasuentha for having punished their oppressions.\nThe end was swift and sad.  By the time that Justinian's ambassador\nlanded, Amalasuentha was strangled in her bath; and all that Peter the\nambassador had to do was, to catch at the cause of quarrel, and declare\n'inexpiable war' on the part of Justinian, as the avenger of the Queen.\n\nAnd then began that dreadful East Goth war, which you may read for\nyourselves in the pages of an eye-witness, Procopius;--a war which\ndestroyed utterly the civilization of Dietrich's long and prosperous\nreign, left Italy a desert, and exterminated the Roman people.\n\nThat was the last woe: but of it I must tell you in my next Lecture.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VI--THE NEMESIS OF THE GOTHS.\n\n\nOf this truly dreadful Gothic war I can give you but a hasty sketch; of\nsome of the most important figures in it, not even a sketch.  I cannot\nconceive to myself, and therefore cannot draw for you, the famous\nBelisarius.  Was he really the strange compound of strength and weakness\nwhich Procopius, and after him Gibbon, represent him?--a caricature, for\ngood and evil, of our own famous Marlborough?  You must read and judge\nfor yourselves.  I cannot, at least as yet, offer you any solution of the\nenigma.\n\nStill less can I conceive to myself Narses, living till his grey hairs in\nthe effeminate intrigues of the harem, and then springing forth a\ngeneral; the Warrior Eunuch; the misanthrope avenging his great wrong\nupon all mankind in bloody battle-fields; dark of counsel, and terrible\nof execution; him to whom in after years the Empress Sophia sent word\nthat he was more fit to spin among maids than to command armies, and he\nanswered, that he would spin her such a thread as she could not unravel;\nand kept his word (as legends say) by inviting the Lombards into Italy.\n\nLeast of all can I sketch Justinian the Great, the half-Teuton peasant,\nwhom his uncle Justin sent for out of the Dardanian hills, to make him a\ndemigod upon earth.  Men whispered in after years that he was born of a\ndemon, a demon himself, passing whole days without food, wandering up and\ndown his palace corridors all night, resolving dark things, and labouring\nall day with Herculean force to carry them out.  No wonder he was thought\nto be a demon, wedded to a demon-wife.  The man is unfathomable,\ninexplicable;--marrying deliberately the wickedest of all women, plainly\nnot for mere beauty's sake, but possibly because he saw in her a\ncongenial intellect;--faithful and loving to her and she to him, amid all\nthe crimes of their following years;--pious with exceeding devotion and\northodoxy, and yet with a piety utterly divorced from, unconscious of,\nthe commonest morality;--discerning and using the greatest men,\nBelisarius and Narses for example, and throwing them away again, surely\nnot in weak caprice, whenever they served him too well;--conquering\nPersians, Vandals, Goths; all but re-conquering, in fact, the carcase\nRoman Empire;--and then trying (with a deep discernment of the value of\nRoman law) to put a galvanic life into the carcase by codifying that law.\n\nIn whatever work I find this man, during his long life, he is to me\ninexplicable.  Louis XI of France is the man most like Justinian whom I\nknow, but he, too, is a man not to be fathomed by me.  All the facts\nabout Justinian you will find in Gibbon.  I have no theory by which to\narrange and explain them, and therefore can tell you no more than Gibbon\ndoes.\n\nSo to this Gothic war; which, you must remember, became possible for\nJustinian by Belisarius' having just destroyed the Vandals out of Africa.\nIt began by Belisarius invading the south of Italy.  Witigis was elected\nwar-king of the Goths, 'the man of witty counsels,' who did not fulfil\nhis name; while Theodatus (Theod-aht 'esteemed by the people' as his name\nmeant) had fallen into utter disesteem, after some last villainy about\nmoney; had been struck down in the road by the man he had injured; and\nthere had his throat cut, 'resupinus instar victimae jugulatus.'\n\nHe had consulted a Jew diviner just before, who had given him a warning.\nThirty pigs, signifying the unclean Gentiles, the Jew shut up in three\nsties; naming ten Goths, ten Romans, and ten Imperialists of Belisarius'\narmy, and left them to starve.  At the end they found dead all the Goths\nbut two, hardly any of the Imperialists, and half the Romans: but the\nfive Roman pigs who were left had lost their bristles--bare to the skin,\nas the event proved.\n\nAfter that Theodatus had no heart to fight, and ended his dog's life by a\ndog's death, as we have seen.\n\nNote also this, that there was a general feeling of coming ruin; that\nthere were quaint signs and omens.  We have heard of the pigs which\nwarned the Goths.  Here is another.  There was a Mosaic picture of\nTheodoric at Naples; it had been crumbling to pieces at intervals, and\nevery fresh downfall had marked the death of an Amal.  Now the last\nremains went down, to the very feet, and the Romans believed that it\nforetold the end of the Amal dynasty.  There was a Sibylline oracle too;\n\n   'Quintili mense Roma nihil Geticum metuet.'\n\nHere, too, we find the last trace of heathenism, of that political\nmythology which had so inextricably interwoven itself with the life and\nhistory of the city.  The shrine of Janus was still standing, all of\nbronze, only just large enough, Procopius says, to contain the bronze\nimage of Janus Bifrons.  The gates, during Christian centuries, had never\nbeen opened, even in war time.  Now people went by night, and tried to\nforce them open: but hardly succeeded.\n\nBelisarius garrisoned Rome, and the Goths attacked it, but in vain.  You\nmust read the story of that famous siege in the really brilliant pages of\nold Procopius, the last good historian of the old world.\n\nMoreover, and this is most important, Belisarius raised the native\npopulation against the Goths.  As he had done in Africa, when in one\nshort campaign he utterly destroyed the now effeminate aristocracy of the\nVandals, so he did in Italy.  By real justice and kindness; by\nproclaiming himself the deliverer of the conquered from the yoke of\nforeign tyrants, he isolated the slave-holding aristocracy of the Goths\nfrom the mass of the inhabitants of Italy.\n\nBelisarius and the Goths met, and the Goths conquered.  But to take Rome\nwas beyond their power; and after that a long miserable war struggled and\nwrangled up and down over the wretched land; city after city was taken\nand destroyed, now by Roman, now by Goth.  The lands lay waste, the\npeople disappeared in tens of thousands.  All great Dietrich's work of\nthirty years was trampled into mud.\n\nThere were horrible sieges and destructions by both parties;--sack of\nMilan by Goths, sack of Rimini and the country round by Romans; horrors\nof famine at Auximum; two women who kept an inn, killing and eating\nseventeen men, till the eighteenth discovered the trap and killed them.\nEverywhere, as I say, good Dietrich's work of thirty years trampled into\ngory mud.\n\nThen Theudebert and his false Franks came down to see what they could\nget; all (save a few knights round the king) on foot, without bow or\nlance; but armed with sword, shield, and heavy short-handled double-edged\nfrancisc, or battle-axe.  At the bridge over the Ticinus they (nominal\nCatholics) sacrificed Gothic women and children with horrid rites, fought\nalike Goths and Romans, lost a third of their army by dysentery, and went\nhome again.\n\nAt last, after more horrors, Vitigis and his Goths were driven into\nRavenna.  Justinian treated for peace; and then followed a strange\nperipeteia, which we have, happily, from an eye-witness, Procopius\nhimself.  The Roman generals outside confessed their chance of success\nhopeless.  The Goths inside, tired of the slow Vitigis, send out to the\ngreat Belisarius, Will he be their king?  King over them there in Italy?\nHe promised, meaning to break his promise; and to the astonishment and\ndelight of the Romans, the simple and honest barbarians opened the gates\nof Ravenna, and let in him and his Romans, to find themselves betrayed\nand enslaved.  'When I saw our troops march in,' says Procopius, 'I felt\nit was God's doing, so to turn their minds.  The Goths,' he says, 'were\nfar superior in numbers and in strength; and their women, who had fancied\nthese Romans to be mighty men of valour, spit in the faces of their huge\nhusbands, and pointing to the little Romans, reproached them with having\nsurrendered to such things as that.'  But the folly was committed.\nBelisarius carried them away captive to Constantinople, and so ended the\nfirst act of the Gothic war.\n\nIn the moment of victory the envy of the Byzantine court undid all that\nit had done.  Belisarius returned with his captives to Rome, not for a\ntriumph, but for a disgrace; and Italy was left open to the Goths, if\nthey had men and heart to rise once more.\n\nAnd they did rise.  Among the remnant of the race was left a hero, Totila\nby name;--a Teuton of the ancient stamp.  Totilas, 'free from death'--'the\ndeathless one,' they say his name means.  Under him the nation rose once\nmore as out of the ground.\n\nA Teuton of the ancient stamp he was, just and merciful exceedingly.  Take\nbut two instances of him, and know the man by them.  He retook Naples.\nThe Romans within were starving.  He fed them; but lest they should die\nof the sudden repletion, he kept them in by guards at each gate, and fed\nthem up more and more each day, till it was safe to let them out, to find\nfood for themselves in the country.  A Roman came to complain that a Goth\nhad violated his daughter.  He shall die, said Totila.  He shall not die,\nsaid the Goths.  He is a valiant hero.  They came clamouring to the king.\nHe answered them quietly and firmly.  They may choose to-day, whether to\nlet this man go unpunished, or to save the Gothic nation and win the\nvictory.  Do they not recollect how at the beginning of the war, they had\nbrave soldiers, famous generals, countless treasures, horses, weapons,\nand all the forts of Italy?  And yet under Theodatus, a man who loved\ngold better than justice, they had so angered God by their unrighteous\nlives, that--what had happened they knew but too well.  Now God had\nseemed to have avenged himself on them enough.  He had begun a new course\nwith them.  They must begin a new course with him; and justice was the\nonly path.  As for the man's being a valiant hero: let them know that the\nunjust and the ravisher were never brave in fight; but that according to\na man's life, such was his luck in battle.\n\nHis noble words came all but true.  The feeble generals who were filling\nBelisarius's place were beaten one by one, and almost all Italy was\nreconquered.  Belisarius had to be sent back again to Italy: but the\nenvy, whether of Justinian himself, or of the two wicked women who ruled\nhis court, allowed him so small a force that he could do nothing.\n\nTotila and the Goths came down once more to Rome.  Belisarius in agony\nsent for reinforcements, and got them; but too late.  He could not\nrelieve Rome.  The Goths had massed themselves round the city, and\nBelisarius, having got to Ostia (Portus) at the Tiber's mouth, could get\nno further.  This was the last woe; the actual death-agony of ancient\nRome.  The famine grew and grew.  The wretched Romans cried to Bessas and\nhis garrison, either to feed them or to kill them out of their misery.\nThey would do neither.  They could hardly at last feed themselves.  The\nRomans ate nettles off the ruins, and worse things still.  There was not\na dog or a rat left.  They even killed themselves.  One father of five\nchildren could bear no longer their cries for food.  He wrapped his head\nin his mantle, and sprang into the Tiber, while the children looked on.\nThe survivors wandered about like spectres, brown with hunger, and\ndropped dead with half-chewed nettles between their lips.  To this, says\nProcopius, had fortune brought the Roman senate and people.  Nay, not\nfortune, but wickedness.  They had wished to play at being free, while\nthey themselves were the slaves of sin.\n\nAnd still Belisarius was coming,--and still he did not come.  He was\nforcing his way up the Tiber; he had broken Totila's chain, burnt a tower\nfull of Goths, and the city was on the point of being relieved, when one\nIsaac made a fool of himself, and was taken by the Goths.  Belisarius\nfancied that Portus, his base of operations, with all his supplies, and\nAntonia, the worthless wife on whom he doted, were gone.  He lost his\nhead, was beaten terribly, fell back on Ostia, and then the end came.\nIsaurians from within helped in Goths by night.  The Asinarian gate was\nopened, and Rome was in the hands of the Goths.\n\nAnd what was left?  What of all the pomp and glory, the spoils of the\nworld, the millions of inhabitants?\n\nFive or six senators, who had taken refuge in St. Peter's, and some five\nhundred of the plebs; Pope Pelagius crouching at Totila's feet, and\ncrying for mercy; and Rusticiana, daughter of Symmachus, Boethius' widow,\nwith other noble women, in slaves' rags, knocking without shame at door\nafter door to beg a bit of bread.  And that was what was left of Rome.\n\nGentlemen, I make no comment.  I know no more awful page in the history\nof Europe.  Through such facts as these God speaks.  Let man be silent;\nand look on in fear and trembling, knowing that it was written of old\ntime--The wages of sin are death.\n\nThe Goths wanted to kill Rusticiana.  She had sent money to the Roman\ngenerals; she had thrown down Dietrich's statues, in revenge for the\ndeath of her father and her husband.  Totila would not let them touch\nher.  Neither maid, wife, nor widow, says Procopius, was the worse for\nany Goth.\n\nNext day he called the heroes together.  He is going to tell them the old\ntale, he says--How in Vitigis' time at Ravenna, 7000 Greeks had conquered\nand robbed of kingdom and liberty 200,000 rich and well-armed Goths.  And\nnow that they were raw levies, few, naked, wretched, they had conquered\nmore than 20,000 of the enemy.  And why?  Because of old they had looked\nto everything rather than to justice; they had sinned against each other\nand the Romans.  Therefore they must choose, and be just men henceforth,\nand have God with them, or unjust, and have God against them.\n\nThen he sends for the wretched remnant of the senators and tells them the\nplain truth:--How the great Dietrich and his successors had heaped them\nwith honour and wealth; and how they had returned his benefits by\nbringing in the Greeks.  And what had they gained by changing Dietrich\nfor Justinian?  Logothetes, who forced them by blows to pay up the money\nwhich they had already paid to their Gothic rulers; and revenue exacted\nalike in war and in peace.  Slaves they deserve to be; and slaves they\nshall be henceforth.\n\nThen he sends to Justinian.  He shall withdraw his army from Italy, and\nmake peace with him.  He will be his ally and his son in arms, as\nDietrich had been to the Emperors before him, or if not, he will kill the\nsenate, destroy Rome, and march into Illyricum.\n\nJustinian leaves it to Belisarius.\n\nThen Totila begins to destroy Rome.  He batters down the walls, he is\nready to burn the town.  He will turn the evil place into a\nsheep-pasture.  Belisarius flatters and cajoles him from his purpose, and\nhe marches away with all his captives, leaving not a living soul in Rome.\n\nBut Totila shews himself a general unable to cope with that great\ntactician.  He divides his forces, and allows Belisarius to start out of\nOstia and fortify himself in Rome.  The Goths are furious at his\nrashness: but it is too late, and the war begins again, up and down the\nwretched land, till Belisarius is recalled by some fresh court intrigue\nof his wicked wife, and another and even more terrible enemy appears on\nthe field, Narses the eunuch, avenging his wrong upon his fellow-men by\ncunning and courage almost preternatural.  He comes upon them with a\nmighty host: but not of Romans alone.  He has gathered the Teuton\ntribes;--Herules, the descendants probably of Odoacer's confederates;\nGepids, who have a long blood-feud against the Goths; and most terrible\nof all, Alboin with his five thousand more Burgundians, of whom you will\nhear enough hereafter.  We read even of multitudes of Huns, and even of\nPersian deserters from the Chosroo.  But Narses' policy is the old Roman\none--Teuton must destroy Teuton.  And it succeeds.\n\nIn spite of some trouble with the Franks, who are holding Venetia, he\nmarches down victorious through the wasted land, and Totila marches to\nmeet him in the Apennines.  The hero makes his last speech.  He says,\n'There will be no need to talk henceforth.  This day will end the war.\nThey are not to fear these hired Huns, Herules, Lombards, fighting for\nmoney.  Let them hold together like desperate men.'  So they fight it\nout.  The Goths depending entirely on the lance, the Romans on a due use\nof every kind of weapon.  The tremendous charge of the Gothic knights is\nstopped by showers of Hun and Herule arrows, and they roll back again and\nagain in disorder on the foot: but in spite of the far superior numbers\nof the Romans, it is not till nightfall that Narses orders a general\nadvance of his line.  The Goths try one last charge; but appalled by the\nnumbers of the enemy, break up, and, falling back on the foot, throw them\ninto confusion, and all is lost.\n\nThe foot are cut down flying.  The knights ride for their lives.  Totila\nand five horsemen are caught up by Asbad the Gepid chief.  Asbad puts his\nlance in rest, not knowing who was before him.  'Dog,' cries Totila's\npage, 'wilt thou strike thy lord?'  But it is too late.  Asbad's lance\ngoes through his back, and he drops on his horse's neck.  Scipwar\n(Shipward) the Goth wounds Asbad, and falls wounded himself.  The rest\ncarry off Totila.  He dies that night, after reigning eleven stormy\nyears.\n\nThe Goths flee across the Po.  There is one more struggle for life, and\none more hero left.  Teia by name, 'the slow one,' slow, but strong.  He\nshall be king now.  They lift him on the shield, and gather round him\ndesperate, but determined to die hard.  He finds the treasure of Totila,\nhid in Pisa.  He sends to Theudebald and his Franks.  Will they help him\nagainst the Roman, and they shall have the treasure; the last remnant of\nthe Nibelungen hoard.  No.  The Luegenfelden will not come.  They will\nstand by and see the butchery, on the chance of getting all Italy for\nthemselves.  Narses storms Rome--or rather a little part of it round\nHadrian's Mole, which the Goths had fortified; and the Goths escape down\ninto Campania, mad with rage.\n\nThat victory of Narses, says Procopius, brought only a more dreadful\ndestruction on the Roman senate and people.  The Goths, as they go down,\nmurder every Roman they meet.  The day of grace which Totila had given\nthem is over.  The Teutons in Narses' army do much the same.  What matter\nto Burgunds and Herules who was who, provided they had any thing to be\nplundered of?  Totila has allowed many Roman senators to live in\nCampania.  They hear that Narses has taken Rome, they begin to flock to\nthe ghastly ruin.  Perhaps there will be once again a phantom senate,\nphantom consuls, under the Romani nominis umbram.  The Goths catch them,\nand kill them to a man.  And there is an end of the Senatus Populusque\nRomanus.\n\nThe end is near now.  And yet these terrible Goths cannot be killed out\nof the way.  On the slopes of Vesuvius, by Nuceria, they fortify a camp;\nand as long as they are masters of the neighbouring sea, for two months\nthey keep Narses at bay.  At last he brings up an innumerable fleet, cuts\noff their supplies; and then the end comes.  The Goths will die like\ndesperate men on foot.  They burst out of camp, turn their horses loose,\nafter the fashion of German knights--One hears of the fashion again and\nagain in the middle age,--and rush upon the enemy in deep solid column.\nThe Romans have hardly time to form some sort of line; and then not the\nreal Romans, I presume, but the Burgunds and Gepids, turn their horses\nloose like the Goths.  There is no need for tactics; the fight is hand to\nhand; every man, says Procopius, rushing at the man nearest him.\n\nFor a third of the day Teia fights in front, sheltered by his long\npavisse, stabbing with a mighty lance at the mob which makes at him, as\ndogs at a boar at bay.  Procopius is awed by the man.  Most probably he\nsaw him with his own eyes.  Second in valour, he says, to none of the\nHeroes.\n\nAgain and again his shield is full of darts.  Without moving a foot,\nwithout turning an inch right or left, says Procopius, he catches another\nfrom his shield-bearer, and fights on.  At last he has twelve lances in\nhis shield, and cannot move it: coolly he calls for a fresh one, as if he\nwere fixed to the soil, thrusts back the enemy with his left hand, and\nstabs at them with his right.  But his time is come.  As he shifts his\nshield for a moment his chest is exposed, and a javelin is through him.\nAnd so ends the last hero of the East Goths.  They put his head upon a\npole, and carry it round the lines to frighten the Goths.  The Goths are\nlong past frightening.\n\nAll day long, and all the next day, did the Germans fight on, Burgund and\nGepid against Goth, neither giving nor taking quarter, each man dying\nwhere he stood, till human strength could bear up no longer, while Narses\nsat by, like an ugly Troll as he was, smiling to see the Teuton slay the\nTeuton, for the sake of their common enemy.  Then the Goths sent down to\nNarses.  They were fighting against God.  They would give in, and go\ntheir ways peaceably, and live with some other Teuton nations after their\nown laws.  They had had enough of Italy, poor fellows, and of the\nNibelungen hoard.  Only Narses, that they might buy food on the journey\nback, must let them have their money, which he had taken in various towns\nof Italy.\n\nNarses agreed.  There was no use fighting more with desperate men.  They\nshould go in peace.  And he kept his faith with them.  Perhaps he dared\nnot break it.  He let them go, like a wounded lion crawling away from the\nhunter, up through Italy, and over the Po, to vanish.  They and their\nname became absorbed in other nations, and history knows the East Goths\nno more.\n\nSo perished, by their own sins, a noble nation; and in perishing,\ndestroyed utterly the Roman people.  After war and famine followed as\nusual dreadful pestilence, and Italy lay waste for years.  Henceforth the\nItalian population was not Roman, but a mixture of all races, with a most\npowerful, but an entirely new type of character.  Rome was no more\nSenatorial, but Papal.\n\nAnd why did these Goths perish, in spite of all their valour and\npatriotism, at the hands of mercenaries?\n\nThey were enervated, no doubt, as the Vandals had been in Africa, by the\nluxurious southern climate, with its gardens, palaces, and wines.  But I\nhave indicated a stronger reason already:--they perished because they\nwere a slave-holding aristocracy.\n\nWe must not blame them.  All men then held slaves: but the original sin\nwas their ruin, though they knew it not.  It helped, doubtless, to\ndebauch them; to tempt them to the indulgence of those fierce and greedy\npassions, which must, in the long run, lower the morality of\nslaveholders; and which, as Totila told them, had drawn down on them the\nanger of heaven.  But more; though they reformed their morals, and that\nnobly, under the stern teaching of affliction, that could not save them.\nThey were ruined by the inherent weakness of all slaveholding states; the\nvery weakness which had ruined, in past years, the Roman Empire.  They\nhad no middle class, who could keep up their supplies, by exercising for\nthem during war the arts of peace.  They had no lower class, whom they\ndare entrust with arms, and from whom they might recruit their hosts.\nThey could not call a whole population into the field, and when beaten in\nthat field, carry on, as Britain would when invaded, a guerilla warfare\nfrom wood to wood, and hedge to hedge, as long as a coign of\nvantage-ground was left.  They found themselves a small army of\ngentlemen, chivalrous and valiant, as slaveholders of our race have\nalways been; but lessening day by day from battle and disease, with no\nmeans of recruiting their numbers; while below them and apart from them\nlay the great mass of the population, helpless, unarmed, degraded, ready\nto side with any or every one who would give them bread, or let them earn\nit for themselves (for slaves must eat, even though their masters\nstarve), and careless of, if not even hostile to, their masters'\ninterests, the moment those masters were gone to the wars.\n\nIn such a case, nothing was before them, save certain defeat at last by\nan enemy who could pour in ever fresh troops of mercenaries, and who had\nthe command of the seas.\n\nI may seem to be describing the case of a modern and just as valiant and\nnoble a people.  I do not mention its name.  The parallel, I fear, is too\ncomplete, not to have already suggested itself to you.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VII--PAULUS DIACONUS\n\n\nAnd now I come to the final settlement of Italy and the Lombard race; and\nto do that well, I must introduce you to-day to an old chronicler--a very\nvaluable, and as far as we know, faithful writer--Paul Warnefrid, alias\nPaul the Deacon.\n\nI shall not trouble you with much commentary on him; but let him, as much\nas possible, tell his own story.  He may not be always quite accurate,\nbut you will get no one more accurate.  In the long run, you will know\nnothing about the matter, save what he tells you; so be content with what\nyou can get.  Let him shew you what sort of an account of his nation, and\nthe world in general, a Lombard gentleman and clergyman could give, at\nthe end of the 8th century.\n\nYou recollect the Lombards, of whom Tacitus says, 'Longobardos paucitas\nnobilitat.'  Paulus Warnefrid was one of their descendants, and his\nhistory carries out the exact truth of Tacitus' words.  He too speaks of\nthem as a very small tribe.  He could not foresee how much the\n'nobilitat' meant.  He knew his folk as a brave semi-feudal race, who had\nconquered the greater part of Italy, and tilled and ruled it well; who\nwere now conquered by Charlemagne, and annexed to the great Frank Empire,\nbut without losing anything of their distinctive national character.  He\ndid not foresee that they would become the architects, the merchants, the\ngoldsmiths, the bankers, the scientific agriculturists of all Europe.  We\nknow it.  Whenever in London or any other great city, you see a 'Lombard\nStreet,' an old street of goldsmiths and bankers--or the three golden\nballs of Lombardy over a pawnbroker's shop--or in the country a field of\nrye-grass, or a patch of lucerne--recollect this wise and noble people,\nand thank the Lombards for what they have done for mankind.\n\nPaulus is a garrulous historian, but a valuable one, just because he is\ngarrulous.  Though he turned monk and deacon in middle life, he has not\nsunk the man in the monk, and become a cosmopolite, like most Roman\necclesiastics, who have no love or hate for human beings save as they are\nfriends or enemies of the pope, or their own abbey.  He has retained\nenough of the Lombard gentleman to be proud of his family, his country,\nand the old legends of his race, which he tells, half-ashamed, but with\nevident enjoyment.\n\nHe was born at beautiful Friuli, with the jagged snow-line of the Alps\nbehind him, and before him the sun and the sea, and the plains of Po; he\nwas a courtier as a boy in Desiderius' court at Pavia, and then, when\nCharlemagne destroyed the Lombard monarchy, seems to have been much with\nthe great king at Aix.  He certainly ended his life as a Benedictine\nmonk, at Monte Casino, about 799; having written a Life of St. Gregory;\nHomilies long and many; the Appendix to Eutropius (the Historia Miscella,\nas it is usually called) up to Justinian's time; and above all, this\nhistory of the Lombards, his forefathers, which I shall take as my text.\n\nTo me, and I believe to the great German antiquaries, his history seems a\nmodel history of a nation.  You watch the people and their story rise\nbefore you out of fable into fact; out of the dreary darkness of the\nunknown north, into the clear light of civilized Roman history.\n\nThe first chapter is 'Of Germany, how it nourishes much people, and\ntherefore many nations go forth of it.'  The reason which he gives for\nthe immense population is significant.  The further to the north, and the\ncolder, the more healthy he considers the world to be, and more fit for\nbreeding human beings; whereas the south, being nearer to the heat of the\nsun, always abounds with diseases.  The fact really is, I presume, that\nItaly (all the south which he knew), and perhaps most of the once Roman\nempire, were during the 6th and 7th centuries pestilential.  Ruined\ncities, stopt watercourses, cultivated land falling back into marsh and\ndesert, a soil too often saturated with human corpses--offered all the\nelements for pestilence.  If the once populous Campagna of Rome be now\nuninhabitable from malaria, what must it have been in Paul Warnefrid's\ntime?\n\nBe that as it may, this is his theory.\n\nThen he tells us how his people were at first called Winils; and how they\ncame out of Scania Insula.  Sweden is often, naturally, an island with\nthe early chroniclers; only the south was known to them.  The north was\nmagical, unknown, Quenland, the dwelling-place of Yotuns, Elves, Trolls,\nScratlings, and all other uncanny inhumanities.  The Winils find that\nthey are growing too many for Scanland, and they divide into three\nparties.  Two shall stay behind, and the third go out to seek their\nfortunes.  Which shall go is to be decided by lot.  The third on whom the\nlot falls choose as war-kings, two brothers, Ayo and Ibor, and with them\ntheir mother, Gambara, the Alruna-wife, prudent and wise exceedingly--and\nthey go forth.\n\nBut before Paul can go too, he has a thing or two to say, which he must\nnot forget, about the wild mysterious north from which his forefathers\ncame.  First how, in those very extreme parts of Germany, in a cave on\nthe ocean shore, lie the seven sleepers.  How they got thither from\nEphesus, I cannot tell, still less how they should be at once there on\nthe Baltic shore, and at Ephesus--as Mohammed himself believed, and\nEdward the Confessor taught--and at Marmoutier by Tours, and probably\nelsewhere beside.  Be that as it may, there they are, the seven martyrs,\nsleeping for ever in their Roman dresses, which some wild fellow tried to\npull off once, and had his arms withered as a punishment.  And Paul\ntrusts that they will awake some day, and by their preaching save the\nsouls of the heathen Wends and Finns who haunt those parts.\n\nThe Teutonic knights, however, and not the seven sleepers, did that good\nwork.\n\nOnly their dog is not with them, it appears;--the sacred dog which\nwatches them till the judgment day, when it is to go up to heaven, with\nNoah's dove, and Balaam's ass, and Alborah the camel, and all the holy\nbeasts.  The dog must have been left behind at Ephesus.\n\nThen he must tell us about the Scritofinns of the Bothnia gulf; wild\nLapps and Finns, who have now retreated before the Teutonic race.  In\nPaul Warnefrid's eyes they are little wild hopping creatures--whence they\nderive their name, he says--Scritofinns, the hopping, or scrambling\nFinns.\n\nScrattels, Skretles, often figure in the Norse tales as hopping dwarfs,\nhalf magical {158}.  The Norse discoverers of America recognized the\nSkraellings in the Esquimaux, and fled from them in panic terror; till\nthat furious virago Freydisa, Thorvard's wife, and Eirek the Red's\ndaughter, caught up a dead man's sword, and put to flight, single-handed,\nthe legion of little imps.\n\nOthers, wiser, or too wise, say that Paul is wrong; that Skrikfins is the\nright name, so called from their 'screeking', screaming, and jabbering,\nwhich doubtless the little fellows did, loudly enough.\n\nBe that as it may, they appear to Paul (or rather to his informants,\nWendish merchants probably, who came down to Charlemagne's court at Aix,\nto sell their amber and their furs) as hopping about, he says, after the\nrein-deer, shooting them with a little clumsy bow, and arrows tipt with\nbone, and dressing themselves in their skins.  Procopius knew these\nScritfins too (but he has got (as usual) addled in his geography, and\nputs them in ultima Thule or Shetland), and tells us, over and above the\nreindeer-skin dresses, that the women never nursed their children, but\nwent out hunting with their husbands, hanging the papoose up to a tree,\nas the Lapps do now, with a piece of deer's marrow in its mouth to keep\nit employed; and moreover, that they sacrificed their captives to a war-\ngod (Mars he calls him) in cruel ugly ways.  All which we may fully\nbelieve.\n\nThen Paul has to tell us how in the Scritfin country there is little or\nno night in midsummer, little or no day in winter; and how the shadows\nthere are exceeding long, and shorten to nothing as they reach the\nequator,--where he puts not merely Egypt, but Jerusalem.  And how on\nChristmas days a man's shadow is nine feet long in Italy, whereas at\nTotonis Villam (Thionville), as he himself has measured, it is nineteen\nfeet and a half.  Because, he says, shrewdly enough, the further you go\nfrom the sun, the nearer the sun seems to the horizon.  Of all which if\nyou answer--But this is not history: I shall reply--But it is better than\nhistory.  It is the history of history.  It helps you to see how the\nworld got gradually known; how history got gradually to be written; how\neach man, in each age, added his little grain to the great heap of facts,\nand gave his rough explanation thereof; and how each man's outlook upon\nthis wondrous world grew wider, clearer, juster, as the years rolled on.\n\nAnd therefore I have no objection at all to listen to Paul in his next\nchapter, concerning the two navels of the ocean, one on each side\nBritain--abysses which swallow up the water twice a day, and twice a day\nspout it up again.  Paul has seen, so he seems to say, the tide, the\n[Greek text], that inexplicable wonder of the old Greeks and Romans,\nrunning up far inland at the mouths of the Seine and Loire; and he has to\nget it explained somehow, before he can go forward with a clear\nconscience.  One of the navels seems to be the Mahlstrom in Norway.  Of\nthe place of the other there is no doubt.  It is close to Evodia insula,\nseemingly Alderney.  For a high noble of the French told him so; he was\nsucked into it, ships and all, and only escaped by clinging to a rock.\nAnd after awhile the margins of that abyss were all left bare, leaving\nthe Frenchman high and dry, 'palpitating so with fear,' says Paul, 'that\nhe could hardly keep his seat.'  But when all the water had been sucked\nin, out and up it came pouring again, in huge mountains, and upon them\nthe Frenchman's ships, to his intense astonishment, reappeared out of the\nbottomless pit; into one of which he jumped; being, like a true\nFrenchman, thoroughly master of the situation; and got safe home to tell\nPaul the deacon.  It is not quite the explanation of the tides which one\nwould have wished for: but if a French nobleman of high rank will swear\nthat he saw it with his own eyes, what can Paul do, in common courtesy,\nbut believe him?\n\nPaul has observed, too, which is a fact, that there is a small tide in\nhis own Adriatic; and suggests modestly that there may be a similar hole\nin the bottom of that sea, only a little one, the tide being very little.\nAfter which, 'his praelibatis,' he will return, he says, to his story.\nAnd so he goes back to the famous Langbard Saga, the old story, which he\nhas turned out of living Teutonic verse into dead Latin prose, and calls\nDe Woden et Frea quaedam ridicula fabula; but can't help for the life of\nhim telling it, apologizing all the time.  How the Winils (his own folk)\nwent out to fight the Wendels, many more than them in number; and how\nGambara, the Alruna-wife, cried to Freia the goddess, and Freia told her\nthat whichsoever of the two armies first greeted Woden at the sunrise\nshould win.  But the Winils are far away on the war-road, and there is no\ntime to send to them.  So Freia bids her take the Winil women, and dress\nthem as warriors, and plait their tresses over their lips for beards, and\ncry to Woden; and Woden admires their long beards, and thinks them such\nvaliant 'war-beasts,' that he grants them the victory.\n\nThen Freia tells him how he has been taken in, and the old god laughs\ntill the clouds rattle again, and the Winils are called Langbardr ever\nafter.\n\nBut then comes in the antiquary, and says that the etymology is\nworthless, and that Langbardr means long axes--(bard=an axe)--a word\nwhich we keep in halbert, a hall-axe, or guard's pole-axe; and perhaps\nthe antiquary is right.\n\nBut again comes in a very learned man, Dr. Latham {162}, and more than\nhints that the name is derived from the Lange Borde, the long meadows by\nthe side of the Elbe: and so a good story crumbles to pieces, and\n\n      'All charms do fly\n   Beneath the touch of cold philosophy.'\n\nThen follows another story, possibly from another saga.  How by reason of\na great famine they had to leave Scoringia, the shore-land, and go into\nMauringia, a word which Mr. Latham connects with the Merovingi, or\nMeerwing conquerors of Gaul.  Others say that it means the moorland,\nothers something else.  All that they will ever find out we may see for\nourselves already.--A little tribe of valiant fair-haired men, whether\nall Teutons, or, as Mr. Latham thinks, Sclavonians with Teuton leaders,\nstill intimately connected with our own English race both by their\nlanguage and their laws, struggling for existence on the bleak brown bogs\nand moors, sowing a little barley and flax, feeding a few rough cattle,\nbreeding a few great black horses; generation after generation fighting\ntheir way southward, as they exhausted the barren northern soils, or\nbecame too numerous for their marches, or found land left waste in front\nof them by the emigration of some Suevic, Vandal, or Burgund tribe.  We\nknow nothing about them, and never shall know, save that they wore white\nlinen gaiters, and carried long halberts, or pole-axes, and had each an\nimmortal soul in him, as dear to God as yours or mine, with immense\nunconscious capabilities, which their children have proved right well.\n\nThen comes another saga, how they met the Assipitti, of whom, whether\nthey were Tacitus's Usipetes, of the Lower Rhine, or Asabiden, the\nremnant of the Asen, who went not to Scandinavia with Odin, we know not,\nand need not know; and how the Assipitti would not let them pass; and how\nthey told the Lombards that they had dogheaded men in their tribe who\ndrank men's blood, which Mr. Latham well explains by pointing out, in the\nTraveller's Song, a tribe of Hundings (Houndings) sons of the hound; and\nhow the Lombards sent out a champion, who fought the champion of the\nAssipitti, and so gained leave to go on their way.\n\nForward they go, toward the south-east, seemingly along the German\nmarches, the debateable land between Teuton and Sclav, which would,\nmechanically speaking, be the line of least resistance.  We hear of\nGothland--wherever that happened to be just then; of Anthaib, the land\nheld by the Sclavonian Anten, and Bathaib, possibly the land held by the\nGepidae, or remnant of the Goths who bided behind (as Wessex men still\nsay), while the Goths moved forward; and then of Burgundhaib, wherever\nthe Burgunds might be then.  I know not; and I will dare to say, no man\ncan exactly know.  For no dates are given, and how can they be?  The\nLombards have not yet emerged out of the dismal darkness of the north\ninto the light of Roman civilization; and all the history they have are a\nfew scraps of saga.\n\nAt last they take a king of the family of the Gungings, Agilmund, son of\nAyo, like the rest of the nations, says Jornandes; for they will be no\nmore under duces, elective war-kings.  And then follows a fresh saga\n(which repeats itself in the myths of several nations), how a woman has\nseven children at a birth, and throws them for shame into a pond; and\nAgilmund the king, riding by, stops to see, and turns them over with his\nlance; and one of the babes lays hold thereof; and the king says, 'This\nwill be a great man;' and takes him out of the pond, and calls him\nLamissohn, 'the son of the fishpond,' (so it is interpreted;) who grows\nto be a mighty Kemper-man, and slays an Amazon.  For when they come to a\ncertain river, the Amazons forbid them to pass, unless they will fight\ntheir she-champion; and Lamissohn swims over and fights the war-maiden,\nand slays her; and they go on and come into a large land and quiet,\nsomewhere about Silesia, it would seem, and abode there a long while.\n\nThen down on them come the savage Bulgars by night, and slay king\nAgilmund, and carry off his daughter; and Lamissohn follows them, and\ndefeats them with a great slaughter, and is made king; and so forth: till\nat last they have got--how we shall never know--near history and historic\nlands.  For when Odoacer and his Turklings and other confederates went up\ninto Rugiland, the country north of Vienna, and destroyed the Rugians,\nand Fava their king, then the Lombards went down into the waste land of\nthe Rugians, because it was fertile, and abode there certain years.\n\nThen they moved on again, we know not why, and dwelt in the open plains,\nwhich are called feld.  One says 'Moravia;' but that they had surely left\nbehind.  Rather it is the western plain of Hungary about Comorn.  Be that\nas it may, they quarrelled there with the Heruli.  Eutropius says that\nthey paid the Herules tribute for the land, and offered to pay more, if\nthe Herules would not attack them.  Paul tells a wild saga, or story, of\nthe Lombard king's daughter insulting a Herule prince, because he was\nshort of stature: he answered by some counter-insult; and she, furious,\nhad him stabbed from behind through a window as he sat with his back to\nit.  Then war came.  The Herules, old and practised warriors, trained in\nthe Roman armies, despised the wild Lombards, and disdained to use armour\nagainst them, fighting with no clothes save girdles.  Rodulf their king,\ntoo certain of victory, sat playing at tables, and sent a man up a tree\nto see how the fight went, telling him that he would cut his head off if\nhe said that the Herules fled; and then, touched by some secret anxiety\nas to the end, spoke the fatal words himself; and a madness from God came\non the Herules; and when they came to a field of flax, they took the blue\nflowers for water, and spread out their arms to swim through, and were\nall slaughtered defencelessly.\n\nThen they fought with the Suevi; and their kings' daughters married with\nthe kings of the Franks; and then ruled Aldwin (a name which Dr. Latham\nidentifies with our English Eadwin, or Edwin, 'the noble conqueror,'\nthough Grotius translates it Audwin, 'the old or auld conqueror'), who\nbrought them over the Danube into Pannonia, between the Danube and the\nDrave, about the year 526.  Procopius says, that they came by a grant\nfrom the Emperor Justinian, who gave as wife to Aldwin a great niece of\nDietrich the Good, carried captive with Witigis to Byzant.\n\nThus at last they too have reached the forecourt of the Roman Empire, and\nare waiting for their turn at the Nibelungen hoard.  They have one more\nstruggle, the most terrible of all; and then they will be for a while the\nmost important people of the then world.\n\nThe Gepidae are in Hungary before them, now a great people.  Ever since\nthey helped to beat the Huns at Netad, they have been holding Attila's\nold kingdom for themselves and not attempting to move southward into the\nEmpire; so fulfilling their name.\n\nThere is continual desultory war; Justinian, according to Procopius'\naccount, playing false with each, in order to make them destroy each\nother.  Then, once (this is Procopius' story, not Paul's) they meet for a\ngreat fight; and both armies run away by a panic terror; and Aldwin the\nLombard and Thorisend the Gepid are left alone, face to face.--It is the\nhand of God, say the two wild kings--God does not mean these two peoples\nto destroy each other.  So they make a truce for two years.  Then the\nGepidae call in Cutuguri, a Hunnic tribe, to help them; then, says\nProcopius, Aldwin, helped by Roman mercenaries, under Amalfrid the Goth,\nTheodoric's great nephew, and brother-in-law of Aldwin, has a great fight\nwith the Gepidae.  But Paul knows naught of all this: with him it is not\nAldwin, but Alboin his son, who destroys the Gepidae.  Alboin, Grotius\ntranslates as Albe-win, 'he who wins all:' but Dr. Latham, true to his\nopinion that the Lombards and the Angles were closely connected,\nidentifies it with our AElfwine, 'the fairy conqueror.'\n\nAldwin, Paul says, and Thorisend fought in the Asfeld,--wherever that may\nbe,--and Alboin the Lombard prince slew Thorisend the Gepid prince, and\nthe Gepidae were defeated with a great slaughter.\n\nThen young Alboin asked his father to let him sit at the table with him.\nNo, he could not do that, by Lombard custom, till he has become son-at-\narms to some neighbouring king.\n\nYoung Alboin takes forty thanes, and goes off to Thorisend's court, as\nthe guest of his enemy.  The rites of hospitality are sacred.  The king\nreceives him, feasts him, seats him, the slayer of his son, in his dead\nson's place.  And as he looks on him he sighs; and at last he can contain\nno longer.  The seat, he says, I like right well: but not the man who\nsits in it.  One of his sons takes fire, and begins to insult the\nLombards and their white gaiters.  You Lombards have white legs like so\nmany brood mares.  A Lombard flashes up.  Go to the Asfeld, and you will\nsee how Lombard mares can kick.  Your brother's bones are lying about\nthere like any sorry nag's.  This is too much; swords are drawn; but old\nThorisend leaps up.  He will punish the first man who strikes.  Guests\nare sacred.  Let them sit down again, and drink their liquor in peace.\nAnd after they have drunk, he gives Alboin his dead son's weapons, and\nlets them go in peace, like a noble gentleman.\n\nThis grand old King dies in peace.  Aldwin dies likewise, and to them\nsucceed their sons, Alboin and Cunimund--the latter probably the prince\nwho made the jest about the brood-mares--and they two will fight the\nquarrel out.  Cunimund, says Paul, began the war--of course that is his\nstory.  Alboin is growing a great man; he has married a daughter of\nClotaire, king of the Franks: and now he takes to his alliance the Avars,\nwho have just burst into the Empire, wild people who afterwards founded a\ngreat kingdom in the Danube lands, and they ravage Cunimund's lands.  He\nwill fight the Lombards first, nevertheless: he can settle the Avars\nafter.  He and his, says Paul, are slain to a man.  Alboin makes a\ndrinking-cup of his skull, carries off his daughter Rosamund\n('Rosy-mouth'), and a vast multitude of captives and immense wealth.  The\nGepidae vanish from history; to this day (says Paul) slaves either of the\nLombards or the Huns (by whom he rather means Avars); and Alboin becomes\nthe hero of his time, praised even to Paul's days in sagas, Saxon and\nBavarian as well as Lombard, for his liberality and his glory.  We shall\nsee now how he has his chance at the Nibelungen hoard.\n\nHe has heard enough (as all Teutons have) of Italy, its beauty, and its\nweakness.  He has sent five thousand chosen warriors to Narses, to help\nhim against Totila and the Ostrogoths; and they have told him of the fair\nland and large, with its vineyards, olive-groves, and orchards, waste by\nwar and pestilence, and crying out for human beings to come and till it\nonce more.\n\nThere is no force left in Italy now, which can oppose him.  Hardly any\nleft in the Roman world.  The plague is come; to add its horrors to all\nthe other horrors of the time--the true old plague, as far as I can\nascertain; bred, men say, from the Serbonian bog; the plague which\nvisited Athens in the time of Socrates, and England in the seventeenth\ncentury: and after the plague a famine; woe on woe, through all the dark\ndays of Justinian the demon-emperor.  The Ostrogoths, as you know, were\nextinct as a nation.  The two deluges of Franks and Allmen, which, under\nthe two brothers Buccelin and Lothaire, all on foot (for the French, as\nnow, were no horsemen), had rolled into Italy during the Gothic war, had\nbeen swallowed up, as all things were, in the fatal gulf of Italy.\nLothaire and his army, returning laden with plunder, had rotted away like\nsheep by Lake Benacus (Garda now) of drink, and of the plague.  Buccelin,\nentrenched among his plunder-waggons by the Volturno stream in the far\nsouth, had waited in vain for that dead brother and his dead host, till\nNarses came on him, with his army of trained Herules and Goths; the\nFrancisc axe and barbed pike had proved useless before the arrows and the\ncavalry of the Romans; and no more than five Allmen, says one, remained\nof all that mighty host.  Awful to think of: 75,000 men, they say, in one\ncolumn, 100,000 in the other: and like water they flowed over the land;\nand like water they sank into the ground, and left no trace.\n\nAnd now Narses, established as exarch of Ravenna, a sort of satrap, like\nthose of the Persian Emperors, and representing the Emperor of\nConstantinople, was rewarded for all his conquests and labours by\ndisgrace.  Eunuch-like, he loved money, they said; and eunuch-like, he\nwas harsh and cruel.  The Empress Sophia, listening too readily to court-\nslanders, bade him 'leave to men the use of arms, and come back to the\npalace, to spin among the maids.'--'Tell her,' said the terrible old imp,\n'I will spin her such a thread as she shall not unravel.'\n\nHe went, superseded by Longinus; but not to Constantinople.  From Naples\nhe sent (so says Paul the Deacon) to Alboin, and bade him come and try\nhis fortune as king of Italy.  He sent, too, (so says old Paul) presents\nto tempt the simple Lombard men--such presents as children would like--all\nfruits which grew in Italian orchards.  Though the gold was gone, those\nwere still left.  Great babies they were, these Teutons, as I told you at\nthe first; and Narses knew it well, and had used them for his ends for\nmany a year.\n\nThen were terrible signs seen in Italy by night; fiery armies fighting in\nthe sky, and streams of blood aloft, foreshadowing the blood which should\nbe shed.\n\nSent for or not, King Alboin came; and with him all his army, and a\nmighty multitude, women, and children, and slaves; Bavarians, Gepidae,\nBulgars, Sarmatae, Pannonians, Sueves, and Noricans; whose names (says\nPaul) remain unto this day in the names of the villages where they\nsettled.  With Alboin, too, came Saxons, twenty thousand of them at the\nleast, with wife and child.  And Sigebert king of the Franks put Suevic\nsettlers into the lands which the Saxons had left.\n\nAlboin gave up his own Hungarian land to his friends the Avars, on the\ncondition that he should have them back if he had to return.  But return\nhe never did, he nor his Lombard host.  This is the end.  The last\ninvasion of Italy.  The sowing, once for all, of an Italian people.  Fresh\nnations were still pressing down to the rear of the Alps, waiting for\ntheir turn to enter the Fairy Land--not knowing, perhaps, that nothing\nwas left therein, but ashes and blood:--but their chance was over now: a\npeople were going into Italy who could hold what they got.\n\nOn Easter Tuesday, in the year of grace 568, they came, seemingly by the\nold road; the path of Alaric and Dietrich and the rest; the pass from\nCarniola, through which the rail runs now from Laybach to Trieste.  It\nmust have been white, in those days, with the bones of nigh 200 years.\nAnd they found bisons, aurochsen, in the mountains, Paul says, and is not\nsurprised thereat, because there are plenty of them in Hungary near by.\nAn old man told him he had seen a skin in which fifteen men might lie\nside by side.  None, you must know, are left now, save a very few in the\nLithuanian forests.  Paul goes out of his way to note this fact, and so\nshall I.\n\nAlboin left a strong guard in Friuli, and Paul's ancestor among them,\nunder Gisulf his nephew, and Marphrais or master of the horse, who now\nbecame duke of Friuli and warden of the marches, bound to prevent the\nAvars following them into their new abode.  Then the human deluge spread\nitself slowly over the Lombard plains.  None fought with them, and none\ngainsaid; for all the land was waste.  The plague of three years before,\nand the famine which followed it had, says Paul, reduced the world into\nprimaeval silence.  The villages had no inhabitants but dogs; the sheep\nwere pasturing without a shepherd; the wild birds swarmed unhurt about\nthe fields.  The corn was springing self-sown under the April sun, the\nvines sprouting unpruned, the lucerne fields unmown, when the great\nLombard people flowed into that waste land, and gave to it their own\nundying name.\n\nThe scanty population, worn out with misery, fled to rocks and islands in\nthe lakes, and to the seaport towns; but they seem to have found the\nLombards merciful masters, and bowed their necks meekly to the inevitable\nyoke.  The towns alone seem to have offered resistance.  Pavia Alboin\nbesieged three years, and could not take.  He swore some wild oath of\nutter destruction to all within, and would have kept it.  At last they\ncapitulated.  As Alboin rode in at St. John's gate, his horse slipped up;\nand could not rise, though the grooms beat him with their lance-butts.  A\nghostly fear came on the Lombards.  'Remember, lord king, thy cruel oath,\nand cancel it; for there are Christian folk in the city.'  Alboin\ncancelled his oath, and the horse rose at once.  So Alboin spared the\npeople of Pavia, and entered the palace of old Dietrich the Ostrogoth, as\nking of Italy, as far as the gates of Rome and Ravenna.\n\nAnd what was his end?  Such an end as he deserved; earned and worked out\nfor himself.  A great warrior, he had destroyed many nations, and won a\nfair land.  A just and wise governor, he had settled North Italy on some\nrough feudal system, without bloodshed or cruelty.  A passionate savage,\nhe died as savages deserve to die.  You recollect Rosamund his Gepid\nbride?  In some mad drinking-bout (perhaps cherishing still his old\nhatred of her family) he sent her her father's skull full of wine, and\nbade her drink before all.  She drank, and had her revenge.\n\nThe story has become world-famous from its horror: but I suppose I must\ntell it you in its place.--How she went to Helmichis the shield-bearer,\nand he bade her get Peredeo the Kemper-man to do the deed: and how\nPeredeo intrigued with one of her bower-maidens, and how Rosamund did a\ndeed of darkness, and deceived Peredeo; and then said to him, I am thy\nmistress; thou must slay thy master, or thy master thee.  And how he,\nlike Gyges in old Herodotus's tale, preferred to survive; and how\nRosamund bound the king's sword to his bedstead as he slept his mid-day\nsleep, and Peredeo did the deed; and how Alboin leapt up, and fought with\nhis footstool, but in vain.  And how, after he was dead, Rosamund became\nHelmichis' leman, as she had been Peredeo's, and fled with him to\nRavenna, with all the treasure and Alpswintha, Alboin's daughter by the\nFrankish wife; and how Longinus the exarch persuaded her to poison\nHelmichis, and marry him; and how she gave Helmichis the poisoned cup as\nhe came out of the bath, and he saw by the light of her wicked eyes that\nit was poison, and made her drink the rest; and so they both fell dead.\nAnd then how Peredeo and the treasure were sent to the Emperor at\nConstantinople; and how Peredeo slew a great lion in the theatre; and how\nTiberius, when he saw that he was so mighty a man of his hands, bade put\nhis eyes out; and how he hid two knives in his sleeves, and slew with\nthem two great chamberlains of the Emperor; and so died, like Samson,\nsays old Paul, having got good weregeld for the loss of his eyes--a man\nfor either eye.\n\nAnd old Narses died at Rome, at a great age; and they wrapt him in lead,\nand sent him to Byzant with all his wealth.  But some say that while he\nwas still alive, he hid his wealth in a great cistern, and slew all who\nknew of it save one old man, and swore him never to reveal the place.  But\nafter Narses' death that old man went to Constantinople to Tiberius the\nCaesar, and told him how he could not die with that secret on his mind;\nand so Tiberius got all the money, so much that it took many days to\ncarry away, and gave it all to the poor, as was his wont.\n\nA myth--a fable: but significant, as one more attempt to answer the\nquestion of all questions in a Teuton's mind--What had become of the\nNibelungen hoard?  What had become of all the wealth of Rome?\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE VIII--THE CLERGY AND THE HEATHEN\n\n\nI asked in my first lecture, 'What would become of the forest children,\nunless some kind saint or hermit took pity on them?'\n\nI used the words saint and hermit with a special purpose.  It was by the\ninfluence, actual or imaginary, of such, that the Teutons, after the\ndestruction of the Roman empire, were saved from becoming hordes of\nsavages, destroying each other by continual warfare.\n\nWhat our race owes, for good and for evil, to the Roman clergy, I shall\nnow try to set before you.\n\nTo mete out to them their due share of praise and blame is, I confess, a\nvery difficult task.  It can only be fulfilled by putting oneself, as far\nas possible, in their place, and making human allowance for the\ncircumstances, utterly novel and unexpected, in which they found\nthemselves during the Teutonic invasions.  Thus, perhaps, we may find it\ntrue of some of them, as of others, that 'Wisdom is justified of all her\nchildren.'\n\nThat is a hard saying for human nature.  Justified of her children she\nmay be, after we have settled which are to be her children and which not:\nbut of all her children?  That is a hard saying.  And yet was not every\nman from the beginning of the world, who tried with his whole soul to be\nright, and to do good, a child of wisdom, of whom she at least will be\njustified, whether he is justified or not?  He may have had his\nignorances, follies, weaknesses, possibly crimes: but he served the\npurpose of his mighty mother.  He did, even by his follies, just what she\nwanted done; and she is justified of all her children.\n\nThis may sound like optimism: but it also sounds like truth to any one\nwho has fairly studied that fantastic page of history, the contrast\nbetween the old monks and our own heathen forefathers.  The more one\nstudies the facts, the less one is inclined to ask, 'Why was it not done\nbetter?'--the more inclined to ask, 'Could it have been done better?'\nWere not the celibate clergy, from the fifth to the eighth centuries,\nexceptional agents fitted for an exceptional time, and set to do a work\nwhich in the then state of the European races, none else could have done?\nAt least, so one suspects, after experience of their chronicles and\nlegends, sufficient to make one thoroughly detest the evil which was in\ntheir system: but sufficient also to make one thoroughly love many of the\nmen themselves.\n\nA few desultory sketches, some carefully historical, the rest as\ncarefully compiled from common facts, may serve best to illustrate my\nmeaning.\n\nThe monk and clergyman, whether celibate or not, worked on the heathen\ngenerally in one of three capacities: As tribune of the people; as hermit\nor solitary prophet; as colonizer; and in all three worked as well as\nfrail human beings are wont to do, in this most piecemeal world.\n\nLet us look first at the Hermits.  All know what an important part they\nplay in old romances and ballads.  All are not aware that they played as\nimportant a part in actual history.  Scattered through all wildernesses\nfrom the cliffs of the Hebrides to the Sclavonian marches, they put forth\na power, uniformly, it must be said, for good.\n\nEvery one knows how they appear in the old romances.--How some Sir\nBertrand or other, wearied with the burden of his sins, stumbles on one\nof these Einsiedler, 'settlers alone,' and talks with him; and goes on a\nwiser and a better man.  How he crawls, perhaps, out of some wild\nscuffle, 'all-to bebled,' and reeling to his saddlebow; and 'ever he went\nthrough a waste land, and rocks rough and strait, so that it him seemed\nhe must surely starve; and anon he heard a little bell, whereat he\nmarvelled; and betwixt the water and the wood he was aware of a chapel,\nand an hermitage; and there a holy man said mass, for he was a priest,\nand a great leech, and cunning withal.  And Sir Bertrand went in to him\nand told him all his case--how he fought Sir Marculf for love of the fair\nEllinore, and how the king bade part them, and how Marculf did him open\nshame at the wineboard, and how he went about to have slain him privily,\nbut could not; and then how he went and wasted Marculf's lands, house\nwith byre, kine with corn, till a strong woman smote him over the head\nwith a quern-stone, and all-to broke his brain-pan;' and so forth--the\nusual story of mad passion, drink, pride, revenge.\n\n'And there the holy man a-read him right godly doctrine, and shrived him,\nand gave him an oath upon the blessed Gospels, that fight he should not,\nsave in his liege lord's quarrel, for a year and a day.  And there he\nabode till he was well healed, he and his horse.'\n\nMust not that wild fighting Bertrand have gone away from that place a\nwiser and a better man?  Is it a matter to be regretted, or otherwise,\nthat such men as the hermit were to be found in that forest, to mend\nBertrand's head and his morals, at the same time?  Is it a matter to be\nregretted, or otherwise, that after twenty or thirty years more of\nfighting and quarrelling and drinking, this same Sir Bertrand--finding\nthat on the whole the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the\npride of life, were poor paymasters, and having very sufficient proof, in\nthe ends of many a friend and foe, that the wages of sin are death--'fell\nto religion likewise, and was a hermit in that same place, after the holy\nman was dead; and was made priest of that same chapel; and died in\nhonour, having succoured many good knights, and wayfaring men'?\n\nOne knows very well that it would not be right now; that it is not needed\nnow.  It is childish to repeat that, when the question is, was it right\nthen--or, at least, as right as was possible then?  Was it needed\nthen--or, at least, the nearest thing to that which was needed?\n\nIf it was, why should not wisdom be justified of all her children?\n\nOne hopes that she was; for certainly, if any men ever needed to be in\nthe right, lest they should be of all men most miserable, it was these\nsame old hermits.  Praying and preaching continually, they lived on food\nwhich dogs would not eat, in dens in which dogs ought not to live.  They\nhad their reasons.  Possibly they knew their own business best.  Possibly\nalso they knew their neighbour's business somewhat; they knew that such\ngenerations as they lived in could not be taught, save by some\nextravagant example of this kind, some caricature, as it were, of the\ndoctrines which were to be enforced.  Nothing less startling, perhaps,\ncould have touched the dull hearts, have convinced the dull brains, of\nfierce, ignorant, and unreasoning men.\n\nFerocity, lawlessness, rapine, cruelty, and--when they were glutted and\ndebauched by the spoils of the Roman empire--sensuality, were the evils\nwhich were making Europe uninhabitable for decent folk, and history--as\nMilton called it--a mere battle of kites and crows.  What less than the\nexample of the hermit--especially when that hermit was a delicate and\nhigh-born woman--could have taught men the absolute superiority of soul\nto body, of spiritual to physical force, of spiritual to physical\npleasure, and have said to them, not in vain words, but solid acts--'All\nthat you follow is not the way of life.  The very opposite to it is the\nway of life.  The wages of sin are death; and you will find them so,--in\nthis life the victims of your own passions, and of the foes whom your\ncrimes arouse, and in life to come of hell for ever.  But I tell you I\nhave no mind to go to hell.  I have a mind to go to heaven; and I know my\nmind right well.  If the world is to be such as this, and the rulers\nthereof such as you, I will flee from you.  I will not enter into the\ncongregation of sinners, neither will I cast in my lot with the\nbloodthirsty.  I will be alone with God and His universe.  I will go to\nthe mountain cave or to the ocean cliff, and there, while the salt wind\nwhistles through my hair, I will be stronger than you, safer than you,\nricher than you, happier than you.  Richer than you, for I shall have for\nmy companion the beatific vision of God, and of all things and beings God-\nlike, fair, noble, just, and merciful.  Stronger than you, because virtue\nwill give me a power over the hearts of men such as your force cannot\ngive you; and you will have to come to my lonely cell, and ask me to\nadvise you, and teach you, and help you against the consequences of your\nown sins.  Safer than you, because God in whom I trust will protect me:\nand if not, I have still the everlasting life of heaven, which this world\ncannot give or take away.  So go your ways, fight and devour one another,\nthe victims of your own lusts.  I am minded to be a good man; and to be\nthat, I will give up--as you have made all other methods impossible for\nme--all which seems to make life worth having'?  Oh! instead of finding\nfault with such men; instead of, with vulturine beak, picking out the\nelements of Manichaeism, of conceit, of discontent, of what not human\nfrailty and ignorance, which may have been in them, let us honour the\nenormous moral force which enabled them so to bear witness that not the\nmortal animal, but the immortal spirit, is the Man; and that when all\nwhich outward circumstance can give is cast away, the Man still lives for\never, by God, and in God.\n\nAnd they did teach that lesson.  They were good, while other men were\nbad; and men saw the beauty of goodness, and felt the strength of it, and\nworshipped it in blind savage admiration.  Read Roswede's Vitae Patrum\nEremiticorum; read the legends of the hermits of the German forests; read\nColgan's Lives of the Irish Saints; and see whether, amid all fantastic,\nincredible, sometimes immoral myths, the goodness of life of some one or\nother is not the historic nucleus, round which the myths, and the worship\nof the saint, have crystallized and developed.\n\nTake, for instance, the exquisite hymn of St. Bridget, which Colgan\nattributes to the sixth century: though it is probably much later; that\nhas nothing to do with the argument:--\n\n   'Bridget, the victorious, she loved not the world;\n   She sat on it as a gull sits on the ocean;\n   She slept the sleep of a captive mother,\n   Mourning after her absent child.\n\n   She suffered not much from evil tongues;\n   She held the blessed faith of the Trinity;\n   Bridget, the mother of my Lord of Heaven,\n   The best among the sons of the Lord.\n\n   She was not querulous, nor malevolent;\n   She loved not the fierce wrangling of women;\n   She was not a backbiting serpent, or a liar;\n   She sold not the Son of God for that which passes away.\n\n   She was not greedy of the goods of this life;\n   She gave away without gall, without slackness;\n   She was not rough to wayfaring men;\n   She handled gently the wretched lepers.\n\n   She built her a town in the plains (of Kildare);\n   And dead, she is the patroness of many peoples.'\n\nI might comment much on this quotation.  I might point out how St.\nBridget is called the mother of the Lord, and by others, the Mary of the\nIrish, the 'Automata coeli regina,' and seems to have been considered at\ntimes as an avatar or incarnation of the blessed Virgin.  I might more\nthan hint how that appellation, as well as the calling of Christ 'the\nbest of the sons of the Lord,' in an orthodox Catholic hymn, seems to\npoint to the remnants of an older creed, possibly Buddhist, the\ntransition whence towards Catholic Christianity was slow and imperfect.  I\nmight make merry over the fact that there are many Bridgets, some say\neleven; even as there are three or four St. Patricks; and raise learned\ndoubts as to whether such persons ever existed, after that Straussian\nmethod of pseudo-criticism which cometh not from above, from the Spirit\nof God, nor yet indeed from below, from the sound region of fact, but\nfrom within, out of the naughtiness of the heart, defiling a man.  I\nmight weaken, too, the effect of the hymn by going on with the rest of\nit, and making you smile at its childish miracles and portents; but I\nshould only do a foolish thing, by turning your minds away from the broad\nfact that St. Bridget, or various persons who got, in the lapse of time,\nmassed together under the name of St. Bridget, were eminently good women.\n\nIt matters little whether these legends are historically correct.  Their\nvalue lies in the moral of them.  And as for their real historical\ncorrectness, the Straussian argument that no such persons existed,\nbecause lies are told of them, is, I hold, most irrational.  The\nfalsehood would not have been invented unless it had started in a truth.\nThe high moral character ascribed to them would never have been dreamed\nof by persons who had not seen living instances of that character.  Man's\nimagination does not create; it only reproduces and recombines its own\nexperience.  It does so in dreams.  It does so, as far as the moral\ncharacter of the saint is concerned, in the legend; and if there had not\nbeen persons like St. Bridget in Ireland, the wild Irish could never have\nimagined them.\n\nTherefore it matters little to a wise man, standing on the top of Croagh\nPatrick, the grandest mountain perhaps, with the grandest outlook, in\nthese British isles, as he looks on the wild Irish there on pattern days,\nup among the Atlantic clouds, crawling on bare and bleeding knees round\nSt. Patrick's cell,--it matters little, I say, to the wise man, whether\nSt. Patrick himself owned the ancient image which is worshipped on that\nmountain peak, or the ancient bell which till late years hung in the\nsanctuary,--such a strange oblong bell as the Irish saints carried with\nthem to keep off the demons--the magic bells which appear (as far as I am\naware) in the legends of no country till you get to Tartary and the\nBuddhists;--such a bell as came (or did not come) down from heaven to St.\nSenan; such a bell as St. Fursey sent flying through the air to greet St.\nCuanady at his devotions when he could not come himself; such a bell as\nanother saint, wandering in the woods, rang till a stag came out of the\ncovert, and carried his burden for him on his horns.  It matters as\nlittle to the wise man whether that bell belonged to St. Patrick, as\nwhether all these child's dreams are dreams.  It matters little to him,\ntoo, whether St. Patrick did, or did not stand on that mountain peak, 'in\nthe spirit and power of Elias' (after whom it was long named), fasting,\nlike Elias, forty days and forty nights, wrestling with the demons of the\nstorm, and the snakes of the fen, and the Peishta-more (the monstrous\nPython of the lakes), which assembled at the magic ringing of his bell,\ntill he conquered not by the brute force of a Hercules and Theseus, and\nthe monster-quellers of old Greece, but by the spiritual force of which\n(so the text was then applied) it is written, 'This kind cometh not out\nbut by prayer and fasting,' till he smote the evil things with 'the\ngolden rod of Jesus,' and they rolled over the cliff, in hideous rout,\nand perished in the Atlantic far below.  But it matters much to a wise\nman that under all these symbols (not childish at all, but most grand, to\nthe man who knows the grand place of which they are told), there is set\nforth the victory of a good and beneficent man over evil, whether of\nmatter or of spirit.  It matters much to him that that cell, that bell,\nthat image are tokens that if not St. Patrick, some one else, at least,\ndid live and worship on that mountain top, in remote primaeval times, in\na place in which we would not, perhaps could not, endure life a week.  It\nmatters much to him that the man who so dwelt there, gained such a power\nover the minds of the heathen round him, that five millions of their\nChristian descendants worship him, and God on account of him, at this\nday.\n\nSt. Ita, again.  It matters little that she did not--because she could\nnot--perform the miracles imputed to her.  It matters little whether she\nhad or not--as I do not believe her to have had--a regularly organized\nconvent of nuns in Ireland during the sixth century.  It matters little\nif the story which follows is a mere invention of the nuns in some after-\ncentury, in order to make a good title for the lands which they held--a\ntrick but too common in those days.  But it matters much that she should\nhave been such a person, that such a story as this, when told of her,\nshould have gained belief:--How the tribes of Hy-Connell, hearing of her\ngreat holiness, came to her with their chiefs, and offered her all the\nland about her cell.  But she, not wishing to be entangled with earthly\ncares, accepted but four acres round her cell, for a garden of herbs for\nher and her nuns.  And the simple wild Irish were sad and angry, and\nsaid, 'If thou wilt not take it alive, thou shalt take it when thou art\ndead.  So they chose her then and there for their patroness, and she\nblessed them with many blessings, which are fulfilled unto this day; and\nwhen she migrated to the Lord they gave her all the land, and her nuns\nhold it to this day, the land of Hy-Connell on the east Shannon bank, at\nthe roots of Luachra mountain.'\n\nWhat a picture!  One hopes that it may be true, for the sake of its\nbeauty and its pathos.  The poor, savage, half-naked, and, I fear, on the\nauthority of St. Jerome and others, now and then cannibal Celts, with\ntheir saffron scarfs, and skenes, and darts, and glibs of long hair\nhanging over their hypo-gorillaceous visages, coming to the prophet\nmaiden, and asking her to take their land, for they could make no decent\nuse of it themselves; and look after them, body and soul, for they could\nnot look after themselves; and pray for them to her God, for they did not\nknow how to pray to Him themselves.  If any man shall regret that such an\nevent happened to any savages on this earth, I am, I confess, sorry for\nhim.\n\nSt. Severinus, again, whom I have mentioned to you more than once:--none\nof us can believe that he made a dead corpse (Silvinus the priest, by\nname) sit up and talk with him on its road to burial.  None of us need\nbelieve that he stopped the plague at Vienna by his prayers.  None of us\nneed attribute to anything but his sagacity the Divine revelations\nwhereby he predicted the destruction of a town for its wickedness, and\nescaped thence, like Lot, alone; or by which he discovered, during the\nfamine of Vienna, that a certain rich widow had much corn hidden in her\ncellars: but there are facts enough, credible and undoubted, concerning\nSt. Severinus, the apostle of Austria, to make us trust that in him, too,\nwisdom was justified of all her children.\n\nYou may remark, among the few words which have been as yet said of St.\nSeverinus, a destruction, a plague, and a famine.  Those words are a fair\nsample of St. Severinus's times, and of the circumstances into which he\nvoluntarily threw himself.  About the middle of the fifth century there\nappears in the dying Roman province of Noricum (Austria we now call it) a\nstrange gentleman, eloquent and learned beyond all, and with the\nstrangest power of melting and ruling the hearts of men.  Who he is he\nwill not tell, save that his name is Severinus, a right noble name\nwithout doubt.  Gradually it oozes out that he has been in the far East,\nthrough long travels and strange dangers, through many cities and many\nlands; but he will tell nothing.  He is the servant of God, come hither\nto try to be of use.  He certainly could have come for no other reason,\nunless to buy slaves; for Austria was at that time the very highway of\nthe nations, the centre of the human Mahlstrom, in which Huns, Gepiden,\nAllmannen, Rugen, and a dozen wild tribes more, wrestled up and down\nround the starving and beleaguered Roman towns of that once fertile and\nhappy province.  A man who went there for his own pleasure, or even\ndevotion, would have been as wise as one who had built himself last\nsummer a villa on the Rappahannock, or retired for private meditation to\nthe orchard of Hougoumont during the battle of Waterloo.\n\nNevertheless, there Severinus stayed till men began to appreciate him;\nand called him, and not unjustly, Saint.  Why not?  He preached, he\ntaught, he succoured, he advised, he fed, he governed; he turned aside\nthe raids of the wild German kings; he gained a divine power over their\nhearts; he taught them something of God and of Christ, something of\njustice and mercy; something of peace and unity among themselves; till\nthe fame ran through all the Alps, and far away into the Hungarian\nmarches, that there was a prophet of God arisen in the land; and before\nthe unarmed man, fasting and praying in his solitary cell on the mountain\nabove Vienna, ten thousand knights and champions trembled, who never had\ntrembled at the sight of armed hosts.\n\nWho would deny that man the name of saint?  And who, if by that sagacity\nwhich comes from the combination of intellect and virtue, he sometimes\nseemed miraculously to foretell coming events, would deny him the name of\nprophet also?\n\nIf St. Severinus be the type of the monk as prophet, St. Columba may\nstand as the type of the missionary monk; the good man strengthened by\nlonely meditation; but using that strength not for selfish fanaticism,\nbut for the good of men; going forth unwillingly out of his beloved\nsolitude, that he may save souls.  Round him, too, cluster the usual\nmyths.  He drives away with the sign of the cross a monster which attacks\nhim at a ford.  He expels from a fountain the devils who smote with palsy\nand madness all who bathed therein.  He sees by a prophetic spirit, he\nsitting in his cell in Ireland, a great Italian town destroyed by a\nvolcano.  His friends behold a column of light rising from his head as he\ncelebrates mass.  Yes; but they also tell of him, 'that he was angelical\nin look, brilliant in speech, holy in work, clear in intellect, great in\ncouncil.'  That he 'never passed an hour without prayer, or a holy deed,\nor reading of the Scriptures (for these old monks had Bibles, and knew\nthem by heart too, in spite of all that has been written to the\ncontrary), that he was of so excellent a humility and charity, bathing\nhis disciples' feet when they came home from labour, and carrying corn\nfrom the mill on his own back, that he fulfilled the precept of his\nMaster, 'He that will be the greatest among you, let him be as your\nservant.'\n\nThey also tell of him (and this is fact and history) how he left his\nmonastery of Derm Each, 'the field of oaks,' which we call Derry, and\nwent away at the risk of his life to preach to the wild Picts of\nGalloway, and founded the great monastery of Iona, and that succession of\nabbots from whom Christianity spread over the south of Scotland and north\nof England, under his great successor Aidan.\n\nAidan has his myths likewise.  They tell of him how he stilled the sea-\nwaves with holy oil; how he turned back on Penda and his Saxons the\nflames with which the heathen king was trying to burn down Bamborough\nwalls.  But they tell, too (and Bede had heard it from those who had\nknown Aidan in the flesh) of 'his love of peace and charity, his purity\nand humility, his mind superior to avarice or pride, his authority,\nbecoming a minister of Christ, in reproving the haughty and powerful, and\nhis tenderness in relieving the afflicted, and defending the poor.'  Who,\nsave one who rejoiceth in evil, instead of rejoicing in the truth, will\ncare to fix his eyes for a moment upon the fairy tales which surround\nsuch a story, as long as there shines out from among them clear and pure,\nin spite of all doctrinal errors, the grace of God, the likeness of Jesus\nChrist our Lord?\n\nLet us look next at the priest as Tribune of the people, supported\nusually by the invisible, but most potent presence of the saint, whose\nrelics he kept.  One may see that side of his power in Raphael's immortal\ndesign of Attila's meeting with the Pope at the gates of Rome, and\nrecoiling as he sees St. Peter and St. Paul floating terrible and\nthreatening above the Holy City.  Is it a myth, a falsehood?  Not\naltogether.  Such a man as Attila probably would have seen them, with his\nstrong savage imagination, as incapable as that of a child from\ndistinguishing between dreams and facts, between the subjective and the\nobjective world.  And it was on the whole well for him and for mankind,\nthat he should think that he saw them, and tremble before the spiritual\nand the invisible; confessing a higher law than that of his own ambition\nand self-will; a higher power than that of his brute Tartar hordes.\n\nRaphael's design is but a famous instance of an influence which wrought\nthrough the length and breadth of the down-trodden and dying Roman\nEmpire, through the four fearful centuries which followed the battle of\nAdrianople.  The wild licence, the boyish audacity, of the invading\nTeutons was never really checked, save by the priest and the monk who\nworshipped over the bones of some old saint or martyr, whose name the\nTeutons had never heard.\n\nThen, as the wild King, Earl, or Comes, with his wild reiters at his\nheels, galloped through the land, fighting indiscriminately his Roman\nenemies, and his Teutonic rivals--harrying, slaughtering, burning by\nfield and wild--he was aware at last of something which made him pause.\nSome little walled town, built on the ruins of a great Roman city, with\nits Byzantine minster towering over the thatched roofs, sheltering them\nas the oak shelters the last night's fungus at its base.  More than once\nin the last century or two, has that same town been sacked.  More than\nonce has the surviving priest crawled out of his hiding-place when the\nsound of war was past, called the surviving poor around him, dug the dead\nout of the burning ruins for Christian burial, built up a few sheds, fed\na few widows and orphans, organized some form of orderly life out of the\nchaos of blood and ashes, in the name of God and St. Quemdeusvult whose\nbones he guards; and so he has established a temporary theocracy, and\nbecome a sort of tribune of the people, magistrate and father--the only\none they have.  And now he will try the might of St. Quemdeusvult against\nthe wild king, and see if he can save the town from being sacked once\nmore.  So out he comes--a bishop perhaps, with priests, monks,\ncrucifixes, banners, litanies.  The wild king must come no further.  That\nland belongs to no mortal man, but to St. Quemdeusvult, martyred here by\nthe heathen five hundred years ago.  Some old Kaiser of Rome, or it may\nbe some former Gothic king, gave that place to the saint for ever, and\nthe saint will avenge his rights.  He is very merciful to those who duly\nhonour him: but very terrible in his wrath if he be aroused.  Has not the\nking heard how the Count of such a place, only forty years before, would\nhave carried off a maiden from St. Quemdeusvult's town; and when the\nbishop withstood him, he answered that he cared no more for the relics of\nthe saint than for the relics of a dead ass, and so took the maiden and\nwent?  But within a year and a day, he fell down dead in his drink, and\nwhen they came to lay out the corpse, behold the devils had carried it\naway, and put a dead ass in its place.\n\nAll which the bishop would fully believe.  Why not?  He had no physical\nscience to tell him that it was impossible.  Morally, it was in his eyes\njust, and therefore probable; while as for testimony, men were content\nwith very little in those days, simply because they could get very\nlittle.  News progressed slowly in countries desolate and roadless, and\ngrew as it passed from mouth to mouth, as it did in the Highlands a\ncentury ago, as it did but lately in the Indian Mutiny; till after a fact\nhad taken ten years in crossing a few mountains and forests, it had\nassumed proportions utterly fantastic and gigantic.\n\nSo the wild king and his wild knights pause.  They can face flesh and\nblood: but who can face the quite infinite terrors of an unseen world?\nThey are men of blood too, men of evil lives; and conscience makes them\ncowards.  They begin to think that they have gone too far.  Could they\nsee the saint, and make it up with him somewhat?\n\nNo.  The saint they cannot see.  To open his shrine would be to commit\nthe sin of Uzzah.  Palsy and blindness would be the least that would\nfollow.  But the dome under which he lies all men may see; and perhaps\nthe saint may listen, if they speak him fair.\n\nThey feel more and more uncomfortable.  This saint, in heaven at God's\nright hand, and yet there in the dom-church--is clearly a mysterious,\nubiquitous person, who may take them in the rear very unexpectedly.  And\nhis priests, with their book-learning, and their sciences, and their\nstrange dresses and chants--who knows what secret powers, magical or\nother, they may not possess?\n\nThey bluster at first: being (as I have said) much of the temper and\nhabits, for good and evil, of English navvies.  But they grow more and\nmore uneasy, full of childish curiosity, and undefined dread.  So into\nthe town they go, on promise (which they will honourably keep, being\nGerman men) of doing no harm to the plebs, the half Roman artisans and\nburghers who are keeping themselves alive here--the last dying remnants\nof the civilization, and luxury, and cruelty, and wickedness, of a great\nRoman colonial city; and they stare at arts and handicrafts new to them;\nand are hospitably fed by bishops and priests; and then they go,\ntrembling and awkward, into the great dom-church; and gaze wondering at\nthe frescoes, and the carvings of the arcades--marbles from Italy,\nporphyries from Egypt, all patched together out of the ruins of Roman\nbaths, and temples, and theatres; and at last they arrive at the saint's\nshrine itself--some marble sarcophagus, most probably covered with vine\nand ivy leaves, with nymphs and satyrs, long since consecrated with holy\nwater to a new and better use.  Inside that lies the saint, asleep, yet\never awake.  So they had best consider in whose presence they are, and\nfear God and St. Quemdeusvult, and cast away the seven deadly sins\nwherewith they are defiled; for the saint is a righteous man, and died\nfor righteousness' sake; and those who rob the orphan and the widow, and\nput the fatherless to death, them he cannot abide; and them he will watch\nlike an eagle of the sky, and track like a wolf of the wood, fill he\npunishes them with a great destruction.  In short, the bishop preaches to\nthe king and his men a right noble and valiant sermon, calling things by\ntheir true names without fear or favour, and assuming, on the mere\nstrength of being in the right, a tone of calm superiority which makes\nthe strong armed men blush and tremble before the weak and helpless one.\n\nYes.  Spirit is stronger than flesh.  'Meekly bend thy neck, Sicamber!'\nsaid St. Remigius to the great conquering King Clovis, when he stept into\nthe baptismal font--(not 'Most Gracious Majesty,' or 'Illustrious Caesar,'\nor 'by the grace of God Lord of the Franks,' but Sicamber, as a\nmissionary might now say Maori, or Caffre,--and yet St. Remigius's life\nwas in Clovis's hand then and always),--'Burn what thou hast adored, and\nadore what thou hast burned!'  And the terrible Clovis trembled and\nobeyed.\n\nSo does the wild king at the shrine of St. Quemdeusvult.  He takes his\nbracelet, or his jewel, and offers it civilly enough.  Will the bishop be\nso good as to inform the great Earl St. Quemdeusvult, that he was not\naware of his rights, or even of his name; that perhaps he will deign to\naccept this jewel, which he took off the neck of a Roman\nGeneral--that--that on the whole he is willing to make the amende\nhonorable, as far as is consistent with the feelings of a nobleman; and\ntrusts that the saint, being a nobleman too, will be satisfied therewith.\n\nAfter which, probably, it will appear to the wild king that this bishop\nis the very man that he wants, the very opposite to himself and his wild\nriders; a man pure, peaceable, just, and brave; possessed, too, of\nboundless learning; who can read, write, cipher, and cast nativities; who\nhas a whole room full of books and parchments, and a map of the whole\nworld; who can talk Latin, and perhaps Greek, as well as one of those\naccursed man-eating Grendels, a Roman lawyer, or a logothete from\nRavenna; possessed, too, of boundless supernatural power;--Would the\nbishop be so good as to help him in his dispute with the Count Boso,\nabout their respective marches in such and such a forest?  If the bishop\ncould only settle that without more fighting, of course he should have\nhis reward.  He would confirm to the saint and his burg all the rights\ngranted by Constantine the Kaiser; and give him moreover all the meadow\nland in such and such a place, with the mills and fisheries, on service\nof a dish of trout from the bishop and his successors, whenever he came\nthat way: for the trout there were exceeding good, that he knew.  And so\na bargain would be struck, and one of those curious compromises between\nthe spiritual and temporal authorities take root, of which one may read\nat length in the pages of M. Guizot, or Sir James Stephen.\n\nAnd after a few years, most probably, the king would express a wish to be\nbaptized, at the instance of his queen who had been won over by the\nbishop, and had gone down into the font some years before; and he would\nbid his riders be baptized also; and they would obey, seeing that it\ncould do them no harm, and might do them some good; and they would agree\nto live more or less according to the laws of God and common humanity;\nand so one more Christian state would be formed; one more living stone\n(as it was phrased in those days) built into the great temple of God\nwhich was called Christendom.\n\nSo the work was done.  Can we devise any better method of doing it?  If\nnot, let us be content that it was done somehow, and believe that wisdom\nis justified of all her children.\n\nWe may object to the fact, that the dom-church and its organization grew\nup (as was the case in the vast majority of instances) round the body of\na saint or martyr; we may smile at the notion of an invisible owner and\nprotector of the soil: but we must not overlook the broad fact, that\nwithout that prestige the barbarians would never have been awed into\nhumanity; without that prestige the place would have been swept off the\nface of the earth, till not one stone stood on another: and he who does\nnot see what a disaster for humanity that would have been, must be\nignorant that the civilization of Europe is the child of the towns; and\nalso that our Teutonic forefathers were by profession destroyers of\ntowns, and settlers apart from each other on country freeholds.  Lonely\nbarbarism would have been the fate of Europe, but for the monk who\nguarded the relics of the saint within the walled burg.\n\nThis good work of the Church, in the preservation and even resuscitation\nof the municipal institutions of the towns, has been discust so well and\nfully by M. Guizot, M. Sismondi, and Sir James Stephen, that I shall say\nno more about it, save to recommend you to read what they have written.  I\ngo on to point out to you some other very important facts, which my ideal\nsketch exemplifies.\n\nThe difference between the Clergy and the Teuton conquerors was more than\na difference of creed, or of civilization.  It was an actual difference\nof race.  They were Romans, to whom the Teuton was a savage, speaking a\ndifferent tongue, obeying different laws, his whole theory of the\nuniverse different from the Roman.  And he was, moreover, an enemy and a\ndestroyer.  The Teuton was to them as a Hindoo is to us, with the\nterrible exception, that the positions were reversed; that the Teuton was\nnot the conquered, but the conqueror.  It is easy for us to feel humanity\nand Christian charity toward races which we have mastered.  It was not so\neasy for the Roman priest to feel them toward a race which had mastered\nhim.  His repugnance to the 'Barbarian' must have been at first intense.\nHe never would have conquered it; he never would have become the willing\nconverter of the heathen, had there not been in him the Spirit of God,\nand firm belief in a Catholic Church, to which all men of all races ought\nalike to belong.  This true and glorious idea, the only one which has\never been or ever will be able to break down the barriers of race, and\nthe animal antipathy which the natural man has to all who are not of his\nown kin: this idea was the sole possession of the Roman clergy; and by it\nthey conquered, because it was true, and came from God.\n\nBut this very difference of race exposed the clergy to great temptations.\nThey were the only civilized men left, west of Constantinople.  They\nlooked on the Teuton not as a man, but as a child; to be ruled; to be\npetted when he did right, punished when he did wrong; and too often\ncajoled into doing right, and avoiding wrong.  Craft became more and more\ntheir usual weapon.  There were great excuses for them.  Their lives and\nproperty were in continual danger.  Craft is the natural weapon of the\nweak against the strong.  It seemed to them, too often, to be not only\nnatural, but spiritual also, and therefore just and right.\n\nAgain, the clergy were the only organic remnants of the Roman Empire.\nThey claimed their privileges and lands as granted to them by past Roman\nEmperors, under the Roman law.  This fact made it their interest, of\ncourse, to perpetuate that Roman law, and to introduce it as far as they\ncould among their conquerors, to the expulsion of the old Teutonic laws;\nand they succeeded on the whole.  Of that more hereafter.  Observe now,\nthat as their rights dated from times which to the Teutons were\npre-historic, their statements could not be checked by conquerors who\ncould not even read.  Thence rose the temptation to forge; to forge\nlegends, charters, dotations, ecclesiastical history of all kinds--an\nugly and world-famous instance of which you will hear of hereafter.  To\nthat temptation they yielded more and more as the years rolled on, till\ntheir statements on ecclesiastical history became such as no historian\ncan trust, without the most plentiful corroboration.\n\nThere were great excuses for them, in this matter, as in others.  They\ncould not but look on the Teuton as--what in fact and law he was--an\nunjust and intrusive usurper.  They could not but look on their Roman\ncongregations, and on themselves, as what in fact and law they were, the\nrightful owners of the soil.  They were but defending or recovering their\noriginal rights.  Would not the end justify the means?\n\nBut more.  Out of this singular position grew a doctrine, which looks to\nus irrational now, but was by no means so then.  If the Church derived\nher rights from the extinct Roman Caesars, how could the Teuton\nconquerors interfere with those rights?  If she had owed allegiance to\nConstantine or Theodosius, she certainly owed none to Dietrich, Alboin,\nor Clovis.  She did not hold their lands of them; and would pay them, if\nshe could avoid it, neither tax nor toll.  She did not recognize the\nsovereignty of these Teutons as 'ordained by God.'\n\nOut of this simple political fact grew up vast consequences.  The Teuton\nking was a heathen or Arian usurper.  He was not a king de jure, in the\neyes of the clergy, till he was baptized into the Church, and then\nlawfully anointed king by the clergy.  Thus the clergy gradually became\nthe makers of kings; and the power of making involved a corresponding\npower of unmaking, if the king rebelled against the Church, and so cut\nhimself off from Christendom.  At best, he was one of 'the Princes of\nthis world,' from whom the Church was free, absolutely in spiritual\nmatters, and in temporal matters, also de jure, and therefore de facto as\nfar as she could be made free.  To keep the possessions of the Church\nfrom being touched by profane hands, even that they might contribute to\nthe common needs of the nation, became a sacred duty, a fixed idea, for\nwhich the clergy must struggle, anathematize, forge if need be: but\nalso--to do them justice--die if need be as martyrs.  The nations of this\nworld were nothing to them.  The wars of the nations were nothing.  They\nwere the people of God, 'who dwelt alone, and were not reckoned among the\nnations;' their possessions were the inheritance of God: and from this\nidea, growing (as I have shewn) out of a political fact, arose the extra-\nnational, and too often anti-national position, which the Roman clergy\nheld for many ages, and of which the instinct, at least, lingers among\nthem in many countries.  Out of it arose, too, all after struggles\nbetween the temporal and ecclesiastical powers.  Becket, fighting to the\ndeath against Henry II., was not, as M. Thierry thinks, the Anglo-Saxon\ndefying the Norman.  He was the representative of the Christian Roman\ndefying the Teuton, on the ground of rights which he believed to have\nexisted while the Teuton was a heathen in the German forests.  Gradually,\nas the nations of Europe became really nations, within fixed boundaries,\nand separate Christian organizations, these demands of the Church became\nintolerable in reason, because unnecessary in fact.  But had there not\nbeen in them at the first an instinct of right and justice, they would\nnever have become the fixed idea of the clerical mind; the violation of\nthem the one inexpiable sin; and the defence of them (as may be seen by\nlooking through the Romish Calendar) the most potent qualification for\nsaintship.\n\nYes.  The clergy believed that idea deeply enough to die for it.  St.\nAlphege at Canterbury had been, it is said, one of the first advisers of\nthe ignominious payment of the Danegeld: but there was one thing which he\nwould not do.  He would advise the giving up of the money of the nation:\nbut the money of his church he would not give up.  The Danes might thrust\nhim into a filthy dungeon: he would not take the children's bread and\ncast it unto the dogs.  They might drag him out into their husting, and\nthreaten him with torture: but to the drunken cry of 'Gold!  Bishop!\nGold!' his only answer would be--Not a penny.  He could not rob the poor\nof Christ.  And when he fell, beaten to death with the bones and horns of\nthe slaughtered oxen, he died in faith; a martyr to the great idea of\nthat day, that the gold of the Church did not belong to the conquerors of\nthis world.\n\nBut St. Alphege was an Englishman, and not a Roman.  True in the letter:\nbut not in the spirit.  The priest or monk, by becoming such, more or\nless renounced his nationality.  It was the object of the Church to make\nhim renounce it utterly; to make him regard himself no longer as\nEnglishman, Frank, Lombard, or Goth: but as the representatives by an\nhereditary descent, considered all the more real because it was spiritual\nand not carnal, of the Roman Church; to prevent his being entangled,\nwhether by marriage or otherwise, in the business of this life; out of\nwhich would flow nepotism, Simony, and Erastian submission to those\nsovereigns who ought to be the servants, not the lords of the Church.  For\nthis end no means were too costly.  St. Dunstan, in order to expel the\nmarried secular priests, and replace them by Benedictine monks of the\nItalian order of Monte Casino, convulsed England, drove her into civil\nwar, paralysed her monarchs one after the other, and finally left her\nexhausted and imbecile, a prey to the invading Northmen: but he had at\nleast done his best to make the royal House of Cerdic, and the nations\nwhich obeyed that House, understand that the Church derived its rights\nnot from them, but from Rome.\n\nThis hereditary sense of superiority on the part of the clergy may\nexplain and excuse much of their seeming flattery.  The most vicious\nkings are lauded, if only they have been 'erga servos Dei benevoli;' if\nthey have founded monasteries; if they have respected the rights of the\nChurch.  The clergy too often looked on the secular princes as more or\nless wild beasts, of whom neither common decency, justice, or mercy was\nto be expected; and they had too often reason enough to do so.  All that\ncould be expected of the kings was, that if they would not regard man,\nthey should at least fear God; which if they did, the proof of 'divine\ngrace' on their part was so unexpected, as well as important, that the\nmonk chroniclers praised them heartily and honestly, judging them by what\nthey had, not by what they had not.\n\nThus alone can one explain such a case as that of the monastic opinion of\nDagobert the Second, king of the Franks.  We are told in the same\nnarrative, seemingly without any great sense of incongruity, how he\nmurdered his own relations and guests, and who not?--how he massacred\n9000 Bulgars to whom he had given hospitality; how he kept a harem of\nthree queens, and other women so numerous that Fredegarius cannot mention\nthem; and also how, accompanied by his harem, he chanted among the monks\nof St. Denis; how he founded many rich convents; how he was the friend,\nor rather pupil, of St. Arnulf of Metz, St. Omer, and above all of St.\nEloi--whose story I recommend you to read, charmingly told, in Mr.\nMaitland's 'Dark Ages,' pp. 81-122.  The three saints were no\nhypocrites--God forbid!  They were good men and true, to whom had been\nentrusted the keeping of a wild beast, to be petted and praised whenever\nit shewed any signs of humanity or obedience.\n\nBut woe to the prince, however useful or virtuous in other respects, who\nlaid sacrilegious hands on the goods of the Church.  He might, like\nCharles Martel, have delivered France from the Pagans on the east, and\nfrom the Mussulmen on the south, and have saved Christendom once and for\nall from the dominion of the Crescent, in that great battle on the plains\nof Poitiers, where the Arab cavalry (says Isidore of Beja) broke against\nthe immoveable line of Franks, like 'waves against a wall of ice.'\n\nBut if, like Charles Martel, he had dared to demand of the Church taxes\nand contributions toward the support of his troops, and the salvation\nboth of Church and commonweal, then all his prowess was in vain.  Some\nmonk would surely see him in a vision, as St. Eucherius, Bishop of\nOrleans, saw Charles Martel (according to the Council of Kiersy), 'with\nCain, Judas, and Caiaphas, thrust into the Stygian whirlpools and\nAcherontic combustion of the sempiternal Tartarus.'\n\nThose words, which, with slight variations, are a common formula of\ncursing appended to monastic charters against all who should infringe\nthem, remind us rather of the sixth book of Virgil's AEneid than of the\nHoly Scriptures; and explain why Dante naturally chooses that poet as a\nguide through his Inferno.\n\nThe cosmogony from which such an idea was derived was simple enough.  I\ngive, of course, no theological opinion on its correctness: but as\nprofessor of Modern History, I am bound to set before you opinions which\nhad the most enormous influence on the history of early Europe.  Unless\nyou keep them in mind, as the fixed and absolute background of all human\nthought and action for more than 1000 years, you will never be able to\nunderstand the doings of European men.\n\nThis earth, then, or at least the habitable part of it, was considered as\nmost probably a flat plane.  Below that plane, or in the centre of the\nearth, was the realm of endless fire.  It could be entered (as by the\nWelsh knight who went down into St. Patrick's Purgatory) by certain\ncaves.  By listening at the craters of volcanoes, which were its mouths,\nthe cries of the tortured might be heard in the depths of the earth.\n\nIn that 'Tartarus' every human being born into the world was doomed to be\nendlessly burnt alive: only in the Church, 'extra quam nulla salus,' was\nthere escape from the common doom.  But to that doom, excommunication,\nwhich thrust a man from the pale of the Church, condemned the sinner\nafresh, with curses the most explicit and most horrible.\n\nThe superior clergy, therefore, with whom the anathematizing power lay,\nbelieved firmly that they could, proprio motu, upon due cause shewn,\ncause any man or woman to be burned alive through endless ages.  And what\nwas more, the Teutonic laity, with that intense awe of the unseen which\nthey had brought with them out of the wilderness, believed it likewise,\nand trembled.  It paralysed the wisest, as well as the fiercest, that\nbelief.  Instead of disgusting the kings of the earth, it gave them over,\nbound hand and foot by their own guilty consciences, into the dominion of\nthe clergy; and the belief that Charles Martel was damned, only knit (as\nM. Sismondi well remarks) his descendants the Carlovingians more closely\nto the Church which possest so terrible a weapon.\n\nWhether they were right or wrong in these beliefs is a question not to be\ndiscussed in this chair.  My duty is only to point out to you the\nuniversal existence of those beliefs, and the historic fact that they\ngave the clergy a character supernatural, magical, divine, with a reserve\nof power before which all trembled, from the beggar to the king; and\nalso, that all struggles between the temporal and spiritual powers, like\nthat between Henry and Becket, can only be seen justly in the light of\nthe practical meaning of that excommunication which Becket so freely\nemployed.  I must also point out to you that so enormous a power (too\ngreat for the shoulders of mortal man) was certain to be, and actually\nwas, fearfully abused, not only by its direct exercise, but also by\nbargaining with men, through indulgences and otherwise, for the remission\nof that punishment, which the clergy could, if they would, inflict; and\nworst of all, that out of the whole theory sprang up that system of\npersecution, in which the worst cruelties of heathen Rome were imitated\nby Christian priests, on the seemingly irrefragable ground that it was\nmerciful to offenders to save them, or, if not, at least to save others\nthrough them, by making them feel for a few hours in this world what they\nwould feel for endless ages in the next.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE IX--THE MONK A CIVILIZER\n\n\nHistorians are often blamed for writing as if the History of Kings and\nPrinces were the whole history of the world.  'Why do you tell us,' is\nsaid, 'of nothing but the marriages, successions, wars, characters, of a\nfew Royal Races?  We want to know what the people, and not the princes,\nwere like.  History ought to be the history of the masses, and not of\nkings.'\n\nThe only answer to this complaint seems to be, that the defect is\nunavoidable.  The history of the masses cannot be written, while they\nhave no history; and none will they have, as long as they remain a mass;\nere their history begins, individuals, few at first, and more and more\nnumerous as they progress, must rise out of the mass, and become persons,\nwith fixed ideas, determination, conscience, more or less different from\ntheir fellows, and thereby leavening and elevating their fellows, that\nthey too may become persons, and men indeed.  Then they will begin to\nhave a common history, issuing out of each man's struggle to assert his\nown personality and his own convictions.  Till that point is reached, the\nhistory of the masses will be mere statistic concerning their physical\nwell-being or ill-being, which (for the early ages of our race) is\nunwritten, and therefore undiscoverable.\n\nThe early history of the Teutonic race, therefore, is, and must always\nremain, simply the history of a few great figures.  Of the many of the\nmasses, nothing is said; because there was nothing to say.  They all ate,\ndrank, married, tilled, fought, and died, not altogether brutally, we\nwill hope, but still in a dull monotony, unbroken by any struggle of\nprinciples or ideas.  We know that large masses of human beings have so\nlived in every age, and are living so now--the Tartar hordes, for\ninstance, or the thriving negroes of central Africa: comfortable folk,\ngetting a tolerable living, son after father, for many generations, but\ncertainly not developed enough, or afflicted enough, to have any history.\n\nI believe that the masses, during the early middle age, were very well\noff; quite as well off as they deserved; that is, earned for themselves.\nThey lived in a rough way, certainly: but roughness is not discomfort,\nwhere the taste has not been educated.  A Red Indian sleeps as well in a\nwigwam as we in a spring bed; and the Irish babies thrive as well among\nthe peat ashes as on a Brussels carpet.  Man is a very well constructed\nbeing, and can live and multiply anywhere, provided he can keep warm, and\nget pure water and enough to eat.  Indeed, our Teutonic fathers must have\nbeen comfortably off, or they could not have multiplied as they did.  Even\nthough their numbers may have been overstated, the fact is patent, that\nhowsoever they were slaughtered down, by the Romans or by each other,\nthey rose again as out of the soil, more numerous than ever.  Again and\nagain you read of a tribe being all but exterminated by the Romans, and\nin a few years find it bursting over the Pfalzgrab or the Danube, more\nnumerous and terrible than before.  Never believe that a people deprest\nby cold, ill-feeding, and ill-training, could have conquered Europe in\nthe face of centuries of destructive war.  Those very wars, again, may\nhave helped in the long run the increase of population, and for a reason\nsimple enough, though often overlooked.  War throws land out of\ncultivation; and when peace returns, the new settlers find the land\nfallow, and more or less restored to its original fertility; and so\nbegins a period of rapid and prosperous increase.  In no other way can I\nexplain the rate at which nations after the most desolating wars spring\nup, young and strong again, like the phoenix, from their own funeral\npile.  They begin afresh as the tillers of a virgin soil, fattened too\noften with the ashes of burnt homesteads, and the blood of the slain.\n\nAnother element of comfort may have been the fact, that in the rough\neducation of the forest, only the strong and healthy children lived,\nwhile the weakly died off young, and so the labour-market, as we should\nsay now, was never overstocked.  This is the case with our own gipsies,\nand with many savage tribes--the Red Indians, for instance--and accounts\nfor their general healthiness: the unhealthy being all dead, in the first\nstruggle for existence.  But then these gipsies, and the Red Indians, do\nnot increase in numbers, but the contrary; while our forefathers\nincreased rapidly.  On the other hand, we have, at least throughout the\nmiddle ages, accounts of such swarms of cripples, lepers, deformed, and\nother incapable persons, as to make some men believe that there were more\nof them, in proportion to the population, than there are now.  And it may\nhave been so.  The strongest and healthiest men always going off to be\nkilled in war, the weakliest only would be left at home to breed; and so\nan unhealthy population might spring up.  And again--and this is a\ncurious fact--as law and order enter a country, so will the proportion of\nincapables, in body and mind, increase.  In times of war and anarchy,\nwhen every one is shifting for himself, only the strongest and shrewdest\ncan stand.  Woe to those who cannot take care of themselves.  The fools\nand cowards, the weakly and sickly, are killed, starved, neglected, or in\nother ways brought to grief.  But when law and order come, they protect\nthose who cannot protect themselves, and the fools and cowards, the\nweakly and sickly, are supported at the public expense, and allowed to\nincrease and multiply as public burdens.  I do not say that this is\nwrong, Heaven forbid!  I only state the fact.  A government is quite\nright in defending all alike from the brute competition of nature, whose\nmotto is--Woe to the weak.  To the Church of the middle age is due the\npreaching and the practice of the great Christian doctrine, that society\nis bound to protect the weak.  So far the middle age saw: but no further.\nFor our own times has been reserved the higher and deeper doctrine, that\nit is the duty of society to make the weak strong; to reform, to cure,\nand above all, to prevent by education, by sanitary science, by all and\nevery means, the necessity of reforming and of curing.\n\nScience could not do that in the middle age.  But if Science could not do\nit, Religion would at least try to do the next best thing to it.  The\nmonasteries were the refuges, whither the weak escaped from the\ncompetition of the strong.  Thither flocked the poor, the crippled, the\norphan, and the widow, all, in fact, who could not fight for themselves.\nThere they found something like justice, order, pity, help.  Even the\nfool and the coward, when they went to the convent-door, were not turned\naway.  The poor half-witted rascal, who had not sense enough to serve the\nking, might still serve the abbot.  He would be set to drive, plough, or\nhew wood--possibly by the side of a gentleman, a nobleman, or even a\nprince--and live under equal law with them; and under, too, a discipline\nmore strict than that of any modern army; and if he would not hew the\nwood, or drive the bullocks, as he ought, then the abbot would have him\nflogged soundly till he did; which was better for him, after all, than\nwandering about to be hooted by the boys, and dying in a ditch at last.\n\nThe coward, too--the abbot could make him of use, even though the king\ncould not.  There were, no doubt, in those days, though fewer in number\nthan now, men who could not face physical danger, and the storm of the\nevil world,--delicate, nervous, imaginative, feminine characters; who,\nwhen sent out to battle, would be very likely to run away.  Our\nforefathers, having no use for such persons, used to put such into a bog-\nhole, and lay a hurdle over them, in the belief that they would sink to\nthe lowest pool of Hela for ever more.  But the abbot had great use for\nsuch.  They could learn to read, write, sing, think; they were often very\nclever; they might make great scholars; at all events they might make\nsaints.  Whatever they could not do, they could pray.  And the united\nprayer of those monks, it was then believed, could take heaven by storm,\nalter the course of the elements, overcome Divine justice, avert from\nmankind the anger of an offended God.  Whether that belief were right or\nwrong, people held it; and the man who could not fight with carnal\nweapons, regained his self-respect, and therefore his virtue, when he\nfound himself fighting, as he held, with spiritual weapons against all\nthe powers of darkness {214}.  The first light in which I wish you to\nlook at the old monasteries, is as defences for the weak against the\nstrong.\n\nBut what has this to do with what I said at first, as to the masses\nhaving no history?  This:--that through these monasteries the masses\nbegan first to have a history; because through them they ceased to be\nmasses, and became first, persons and men, and then, gradually, a people.\nThat last the monasteries could not make them: but they educated them for\nbecoming a people; and in this way.  They brought out, in each man, the\nsense of individual responsibility.  They taught him, whether warrior or\ncripple, prince or beggar, that he had an immortal soul, for which each\nmust give like account to God.\n\nDo you not see the effect of that new thought?  Treated as slaves, as\nthings and animals, the many had learnt to consider themselves as things\nand animals.  And so they had become 'a mass,' that is, a mere heap of\ninorganic units, each of which has no spring of life in itself as\ndistinguished from a whole, a people, which has one bond, uniting each to\nall.  The 'masses' of the French had fallen into that state, before the\nRevolution of 1793.  The 'masses' of our agricultural labourers,--the\n'masses' of our manufacturing workmen, were fast falling into that state\nin the days of our grandfathers.  Whether the French masses have risen\nout of it, remains to be seen.  The English masses, thanks to Almighty\nGod, have risen out of it; and by the very same factor by which the\nmiddle-age masses rose--by Religion.  The great Methodist movement of the\nlast century did for our masses, what the monks did for our forefathers\nin the middle age.  Wesley and Whitfield, and many another noble soul,\nsaid to Nailsea colliers, Cornish miners, and all manner of drunken\nbrutalized fellows, living like the beasts that perish,--'Each of\nyou--thou--and thou--and thou--stand apart and alone before God.  Each\nhas an immortal soul in him, which will be happy or miserable for ever,\naccording to the deeds done in the body.  A whole eternity of shame or of\nglory lies in you--and you are living like a beast.'  And in proportion\nas each man heard that word, and took it home to himself, he became a new\nman, and a true man.  The preachers may have mixed up words with their\nmessage with which we may disagree, have appealed to low hopes and fears\nwhich we should be ashamed to bring into our calculations;--so did the\nmonks: but they got their work done somehow; and let us thank them, and\nthe old Methodists, and any man who will tell men, in whatever clumsy and\nrough fashion, that they are not things, and pieces of a mass, but\npersons, with an everlasting duty, an everlasting right and wrong, an\neverlasting God in whose presence they stand, and who will judge them\naccording to their works.  True, that is not all that men need to learn.\nAfter they are taught, each apart, that he is a man, they must be taught,\nhow to be an united people: but the individual teaching must come first;\nand before we hastily blame the individualizing tendencies of the old\nEvangelical movement, or that of the middle-age monks, let us remember,\nthat if they had not laid the foundation, others could not build thereon.\n\nBesides, they built themselves, as well as they could, on their own\nfoundation.  As soon as men begin to be really men, the desire of\ncorporate life springs up in them.  They must unite; they must organize\nthemselves.  If they possess duties, they must be duties to their fellow-\nmen; if they possess virtues and graces, they must mix with their fellow-\nmen in order to exercise them.\n\nThe solitaries of the Thebaid found that they became selfish wild beasts,\nor went mad, if they remained alone; and they formed themselves into\nlauras, 'lanes' of huts, convents, under a common abbot or father.  The\nevangelical converts of the last century formed themselves into powerful\nand highly organized sects.  The middle-age monasteries organized\nthemselves into highly artificial communities round some sacred spot,\ngenerally under the supposed protection of some saint or martyr, whose\nbones lay there.  Each method was good, though not the highest.  None of\nthem rises to the idea of a people, having one national life, under one\nmonarch, the representative to each and all of that national life, and\nthe dispenser and executor of its laws.  Indeed, the artificial\norganization, whether monastic or sectarian, may become so strong as to\ninterfere with national life, and make men forget their real duty to\ntheir king and country, in their self-imposed duty to the sect or order\nto which they belong.  The monastic organization indeed had to die, in\nmany countries, in order that national life might develop itself; and the\ndissolution of the monasteries marks the birth of an united and powerful\nEngland.  They or Britain must have died.  An imperium in imperio--much\nmore many separate imperia--was an element of national weakness, which\nmight be allowed in times of peace and safety, but not in times of\nconvulsion and of danger.\n\nYou may ask, however, how these monasteries became so powerful, if they\nwere merely refuges for the weak?  Even if they were (and they were) the\nhomes of an equal justice and order, mercy and beneficence, which had few\nor no standing-places outside their walls, still, how, if governed by\nweak men, could they survive in the great battle of life?  The sheep\nwould have but a poor life of it, if they set up hurdles against the\nwolves, and agreed at all events not to eat each other.\n\nThe answer is, that the monasteries were not altogether tenanted by\nincapables.  The same causes which brought the low-born into the\nmonasteries, brought the high-born, many of the very highest.  The same\ncause which brought the weak into the monasteries, brought the strong,\nmany of the very strongest.\n\nThe middle-age records give us a long list of kings, princes, nobles, who\nhaving done (as they held) their work in the world outside, went into\nthose convents to try their hands at what seemed to them (and often was)\nbetter work than the perpetual coil of war, intrigue, and ambition, which\nwas not the crime, but the necessary fate, of a ruler in the middle ages.\nTired of work, and tired of life; tired too, of vain luxury and vain\nwealth, they fled to the convent, as to the only place where a man could\nget a little peace, and think of God, and his own soul; and recollected,\nas they worked with their own hands by the side of the lowest-born of\ntheir subjects, that they had a human flesh and blood, a human immortal\nsoul, like those whom they had ruled.  Thank God that the great have\nother methods now of learning that great truth; that the work of life, if\nbut well done, will teach it to them: but those were hard times, and wild\ntimes; and fighting men could hardly learn, save in the convent, that\nthere was a God above who watched the widows' and the orphans' tears, and\nwhen he made inquisition for blood, forgot not the cause of the poor.\n\nSuch men and women of rank brought into the convent, meanwhile, all the\nprestige of their rank, all their superior knowledge of the world; and\nbecame the patrons and protectors of the society; while they submitted,\ngenerally with peculiar humility and devotion, to its most severe and\ndegrading rules.  Their higher sensibilities, instead of making them\nshrink from hardship, made them strong to endure self-sacrifices, and\noften self-tortures, which seem to us all but incredible; and the lives,\nor rather living deaths, of the noble and princely penitents of the early\nmiddle age, are among the most beautiful tragedies of humanity.\n\nTo these monasteries, too, came the men of the very highest intellect, of\nwhatsoever class.  I say, of the very highest intellect.  Tolerably\ntalented men might find it worth while to stay in the world, and use\ntheir wits in struggling upward there.  The most talented of all would be\nthe very men to see a better 'carriere ouverte aux talens' than the world\ncould give; to long for deeper and loftier meditation than could be found\nin the court; for a more divine life, a more blessed death, than could be\nfound in the camp and the battle-field.\n\nAnd so it befals, that in the early middle age the cleverest men were\ngenerally inside the convent, trying, by moral influence and superior\nintellect, to keep those outside from tearing each other to pieces.\n\nBut these intellects could not remain locked up in the monasteries.  The\ndaily routine of devotion, even of silent study and contemplation, was\nnot sufficient for them, as it was for the average monk.  There was still\na reserve of force in them, which must be up and doing; and which, in a\nman inspired by that Spirit which is the Spirit of love to man as well as\nto God, must needs expand outwards in all directions, to Christianize, to\ncivilize, to colonize.\n\nTo colonize.  When people talk loosely of founding an abbey for\nsuperstitious uses, they cannot surely be aware of the state of the\ncountries in which those abbeys were founded; either primaeval forest,\nhardly-tilled common, or to be described by that terrible epithet of\nDomesday-book, 'wasta'--wasted by war.  A knowledge of that fact would\nlead them to guess that there were almost certainly uses for the abbey\nwhich had nothing to do with superstition; which were as thoroughly\npractical as those of a company for draining the bog of Allen, or running\na railroad through an American forest.  Such, at least, was the case, at\nleast for the first seven centuries after the fall of Rome; and to these\nmissionary colonizers Europe owes, I verily believe, among a hundred\nbenefits, this which all Englishmen will appreciate; that Roman\nagriculture not only revived in the countries which were once the Empire,\nbut spread from thence eastward and northward, into the principal\nwilderness of the Teuton and Sclavonic races.\n\nI cannot, I think, shew you better what manner of men these\nmonk-colonizers were, and what sort of work they did, than by giving you\nthe biography of one of them; and out of many I have chosen that of St.\nSturmi, founder whilome of the great abbey of Fulda, which lies on the\ncentral watershed of Germany, about equidistant, to speak roughly, from\nFrankfort, Cassel, Gotha, and Coburg.\n\nHis life is matter of history, written by one Eigils (sainted like\nhimself), who was his disciple and his friend.  Naturally told it is, and\nlovingly; but if I recollect right, without a single miracle or myth; the\nliving contemporaneous picture of such a man, living in such a state of\nsociety, as we shall never (and happily need never) see again, but which\nis for that very reason worthy to be preserved, for a token that wisdom\nis justified of all her children.\n\nIt stands at length in Pertz's admirable 'Monumenta Historica,' among\nmany another like biography, and if I tell it here somewhat at length,\nreaders must forgive me.\n\nEvery one has heard of little king Pepin, and many may have heard also\nhow he was a mighty man of valour, and cut off a lion's head at one blow;\nand how he was a crafty statesman, and first consolidated the temporal\npower of the Popes, and helped them in that detestable crime of\noverthrowing the noble Lombard kingdom, which cost Italy centuries of\nslavery and shame, and which has to be expiated even yet, it would seem,\nby some fearful punishment.\n\nBut every one may not know that Pepin had great excuses--if not for\nhelping to destroy the Lombards--yet still for supporting the power of\nthe Popes.  It seemed to him--and perhaps it was--the only practical\nmethod of uniting the German tribes into one common people, and stopping\nthe internecine wars by which they were tearing themselves to pieces.  It\nseemed to him--and perhaps it was--the only practical method for\ncivilizing and Christianizing the still wild tribes, Frisians, Saxons,\nand Sclaves, who pressed upon the German marches, from the mouth of the\nElbe to the very Alps.  Be that as it may, he began the work; and his son\nCharlemagne finished it; somewhat well, and again somewhat ill--as most\nwork, alas! is done on earth.  Now in the days of little king Pepin there\nwas a nobleman of Bavaria, and his wife, who had a son called Sturmi; and\nthey brought him to St. Boniface, that he might make him a priest.  And\nthe child loved St. Boniface's noble English face, and went with him\nwillingly, and was to him as a son.  And who was St. Boniface?  That is a\nlong story.  Suffice it that he was a man of Devon, brought up in a\ncloister at Exeter; and that he had crossed over into Frankenland, upon\nthe lower Rhine, and become a missionary of the widest and loftiest aims;\nnot merely a preacher and winner of souls, though that, it is said, in\nperfection; but a civilizer, a colonizer, a statesman.  He, and many\nanother noble Englishman and Scot (whether Irish or Caledonian) were\nworking under the Frank kings to convert the heathens of the marches, and\ncarry the Cross into the far East.  They led lives of poverty and danger;\nthey were martyred, half of them, as St. Boniface was at last.  But they\ndid their work; and doubtless they have their reward.  They did their\nbest, according to their light.  God grant that we, to whom so much more\nlight has been given, may do our best likewise.  Under this great genius\nwas young Sturmi trained.  Trained (as was perhaps needed for those who\nhad to do such work in such a time) to have neither wife, nor child, nor\nhome, nor penny in his purse; but to do all that he was bid, learn all\nthat he could, and work for his living with his own hands; a life of\nbitter self-sacrifice.  Such a life is not needed now.  Possibly,\nnevertheless, it was needed then.\n\nSo St. Boniface took Sturmi about with him in his travels, and at last\nhanded him over to Wigbert, the priest, to prepare him for the ministry.\n'Under whom,' says his old chronicler, 'the boy began to know the Psalms\nthoroughly by heart; to understand the Holy Scriptures of Christ with\nspiritual sense; took care to learn most studiously the mysteries of the\nfour Gospels, and to bury in his heart, by assiduous reading, the\ntreasures of the Old and New Testament.  For his meditation was in the\nLaw of the Lord day and night; profound in understanding, shrewd of\nthought, prudent of speech, fair of face, sober of carriage, honourable\nin morals, spotless in life, by sweetness, humility, and alacrity, he\ndrew to him the love of all.'\n\nHe grew to be a man; and in due time he was ordained priest, 'by the will\nand consent of all;' and he 'began to preach the words of Christ\nearnestly to the people;' and his preaching wrought wonders among them.\n\nThree years he preached in his Rhineland parish, winning love from all.\nBut in the third year 'a heavenly thought' came into his mind that he\nwould turn hermit and dwell in the wild forest.  And why?  Who can tell?\nHe may, likely enough, have found celibacy a fearful temptation for a\nyoung and eloquent man, and longed to flee from the sight of that which\nmust not be his.  And that, in his circumstances, was not a foolish wish.\nHe may have wished to escape, if but once, from the noise and crowd of\noutward things, and be alone with God and Christ, and his own soul.  And\nthat was not a foolish wish.  John Bunyan so longed, and found what he\nwanted in Bedford Jail, and set it down and printed it in a Pilgrim's\nProgress, which will live as long as man is man.  George Fox longed for\nit, and made himself clothes of leather which would not wear out, and\nlived in a hollow tree, till he, too, set down the fruit of his solitude\nin a diary which will live likewise as long as man is man.  Perhaps,\nagain, young Sturmi longed to try for once in a way what he was worth\nupon God's earth; how much he could endure; what power he had of helping\nhimself, what courage to live by his own wits, and God's mercy, on roots\nand fruits, as wild things live.  And surely that was not altogether a\nfoolish wish.  At least, he longed to be a hermit; but he kept his\nlonging to himself, however, till St. Boniface, his bishop, appeared; and\nthen he told him all his heart.\n\nAnd St. Boniface said: 'Go; in the name of God;' and gave him two\ncomrades, and sent him into 'the wilderness which is called Buchonia, the\nBeech Forest, to find a place fit for the servants of the Lord to dwell\nin.  For the Lord is able to provide his people a home in the desert.'\n\nSo those three went into the wild forest.  And 'for three days they saw\nnought but earth and sky and mighty trees.  And they went on, praying\nChrist that He would guide their feet into the way of peace.  And on the\nthird day they came to the place which is called Hersfelt (the hart's\ndown?), and searched it round, and prayed that Christ would bless the\nplace for them to dwell in; and then they built themselves little huts of\nbeech-bark, and abode there many days, serving God with holy fastings,\nand watchings, and prayers.'\n\nIs it not a strange story? so utterly unlike anything which we see\nnow;--so utterly unlike anything which we ought to see now?  And yet it\nmay have been good in its time.  It looks out on us from the dim ages,\nlike the fossil bone of some old monster cropping out of a quarry.  But\nthe old monster was good in his place and time.  God made him and had\nneed of him.  It may be that God made those three poor monks, and had\nneed of them likewise.\n\nAs for their purposes being superstitious, we shall be better able to\njudge of that when we have seen what they were--what sort of a house they\nmeant to build to God.  As for their having self-interest in view, no\ndoubt they thought that they should benefit their own souls in this life,\nand in the life to come.  But one would hardly blame them for that,\nsurely?\n\nOne would not blame them as selfish and sordid if they had gone out on a\ncommercial speculation?  Why, then, if on a religious one?  The merchant\nadventurer is often a noble type of man, and one to whom the world owes\nmuch, though his hands are not always clean, nor his eye single.  The\nmonk adventurer of the middle age is, perhaps, a still nobler type of\nman, and one to whom the world owes more, though his eye, too, was not\nalways single, nor his hands clean.\n\nAs for selfishness, one must really bear in mind that men who walked away\ninto that doleful 'urwarld' had need to pray very literally 'that Christ\nwould guide their feet into the way of peace;' and must have cared as\nmuch for their wordly interests as those who march up to the cannon's\nmouth.  Their lives in that forest were not worth twenty-four hours'\npurchase, and they knew it.  It is an ugly thing for an unarmed man,\nwithout a compass, to traverse the bush of Australia or New Zealand,\nwhere there are no wild beasts.  But it was uglier still to start out\nunder the dark roof of that primaeval wood.  Knights, when they rode it,\nwent armed cap-a-pie, like Sintram through the dark valley, trusting in\nGod and their good sword.  Chapmen and merchants stole through it by a\nfew tracks in great companies, armed with bill and bow.  Peasants\nventured into it a few miles, to cut timber, and find pannage for their\nswine, and whispered wild legends of the ugly things therein--and\nsometimes, too, never came home.  Away it stretched from the fair\nRhineland, wave after wave of oak and alder, beech and pine, God alone\nknew how far, into the land of night and wonder, and the infinite\nunknown; full of elk and bison, bear and wolf, lynx and glutton, and\nperhaps of worse beasts still.  Worse beasts, certainly, Sturmi and his\ncomrades would have met, if they had met them in human form.  For there\nwere waifs and strays of barbarism there, uglier far than any waif and\nstray of civilization, border ruffian of the far west, buccaneer of the\nTropic keys, Cimaroon of the Panama forests; men verbiesterte, turned\ninto the likeness of beasts, wildfanger, huner, ogres, wehr-wolves,\nstrong thieves and outlaws, many of them possibly mere brutal maniacs;\nnaked, living in caves and coverts, knowing no law but their own hunger,\nrage, and lust; feeding often on human flesh; and woe to the woman or\nchild or unarmed man who fell into their ruthless clutch.  Orson, and\nsuch like human brutes of the wilderness, serve now to amuse children in\nfairy tales; they were then ugly facts of flesh and blood.  There were\nheathens there, too, in small colonies: heathen Saxons, cruelest of all\nthe tribes; who worshipped at the Irmensul, and had an old blood-feud\nagainst the Franks; heathen Thuringer, who had murdered St. Kilian the\nIrishman at Wurzburg; heathen Slaves, of different tribes, who had\nintroduced into Europe the custom of impaling their captives: and woe to\nthe Christian priest who fell into any of their hands.  To be knocked on\nthe head before some ugly idol was the gentlest death which they were\nlike to have.  They would have called that martyrdom, and the gate of\neternal bliss; but they were none the less brave men for going out to\nface it.\n\nAnd beside all these, and worse than all these, there were the terrors of\nthe unseen world; very real in those poor monks' eyes, though not in\nours.  There were Nixes in the streams, and Kobolds in the caves, and\nTannhauser in the dark pine-glades, who hated the Christian man, and\nwould lure him to his death.  There were fair swan-maidens and\nelf-maidens; nay, dame Venus herself, and Herodias the dancer, with all\ntheir rout of revellers; who would tempt him to sin, and having made him\nsell his soul, destroy both body and soul in hell.  There was Satan and\nall the devils, too, plotting to stop the Christian man from building the\nhouse of the Lord, and preaching the gospel to the heathen; ready to call\nup storms, and floods, and forest fires; to hurl the crag down from the\ncliffs, or drop the rotting tree on their defenceless heads--all real and\nterrible in those poor monks' eyes, as they walked on, singing their\npsalms, and reading their Gospels, and praying to God to save them, for\nthey could not save themselves; and to guide them, for they knew not,\nlike Abraham, whither they went; and to show them the place where they\nshould build the house of the Lord, and preach righteousness, peace, and\njoy in the Holy Spirit to the heathen round.  We talk still, thank\nheaven, of heroes, and understand what that great word should mean.  But\nwere not these poor monks heroes?  Knights-errant of God, doing his work\nas they best knew how.  We have a purer gospel than they: we understand\nour Bibles better.  But if they had not done what they did, where would\nhave been now our gospel, and our Bible?  We cannot tell.  It was a wise\nold saw of our forefathers--'Do not speak ill of the bridge which carries\nyou over.'\n\nIf Sturmi had had a 'holy longing' to get into the wild wood, now he had\na 'holy longing' to go back; and to find St. Boniface, and tell him what\na pleasant place Hersfelt was, and the quality of the soil, and the\ndirection of the watershed, and the meadows, and springs, and so forth,\nin a very practical way.  And St. Boniface answered, that the place\nseemed good enough; but that he was afraid for them, on account of the\nsavage heathen Saxons.  They must go deeper into the forest, and then\nthey would be safe.  So he went back to his fellow-hermits, and they made\nto themselves a canoe; and went paddling up and down the Fulda stream,\nbeneath the alder boughs, 'trying the mouths of the mountain-streams, and\nlanding to survey the hills and ridges,'--pioneers of civilization none\nthe less because they pioneered in the name of Him who made earth and\nheaven: but they found nothing which they thought would suit the blessed\nSt. Boniface, save that they stayed a little at the place which is called\nRuohen-bah, 'the rough brook,' to see if it would suit; but it would not.\nSo they went back to their birch huts to fast and pray once more.\n\nSt. Boniface sent for Sturmi after awhile, probably to Maintz, to ask of\nhis success; and Sturmi threw himself on his face before him; and\nBoniface raised him up, and kissed him, and made him sit by his\nside--which was a mighty honour; for St. Boniface, the penniless monk,\nwas at that moment one of the most powerful men of Europe; and he gave\nSturmi a good dinner, of which, no doubt, he stood in need; and bade him\nkeep up heart, and seek again for the place which God had surely\nprepared, and would reveal in His good time.\n\nAnd this time Sturmi, probably wiser from experience, determined to go\nalone; but not on foot.  So he took to him a trusty ass, and as much food\nas he could pack on it; and, axe in hand, rode away into the wild wood,\nsinging his psalms.  And every night, before he lay down to sleep, he cut\nboughs, and stuck them up for a ring fence round him and the ass, to the\ndiscomfiture of the wolves, which had, and have still, a great hankering\nafter asses' flesh.  It is a quaint picture, no doubt; but let us respect\nit, while we smile at it; if we, too, be brave men.\n\nThen one day he fell into a great peril.  He came to the old road (a\nRoman one, I presume; for the Teutons, whether in England or elsewhere,\nnever dreamed of making roads till three hundred years ago, but used the\nold Roman ones), which led out of the Thuringen land to Maintz.  And at\nthe ford over the Fulda he met a great multitude bathing, of Sclavonian\nheathens, going to the fair at Maintz.  And they smelt so strong, the\nfoul miscreants, that Sturmi's donkey backed, and refused to face them;\nand Sturmi himself was much of the donkey's mind, for they began to mock\nhim (possibly he nearly went over the donkey's head), and went about to\nhurt him.\n\n'But,' says the chronicler, 'the power of the Lord held them back.'\n\nThen he went on, right thankful at having escaped with his life, up and\ndown, round and round, exploring and surveying--for what purpose we shall\nsee hereafter.  And at last he lost himself in the place which is called\nAihen-loh, 'the glade of oaks;' and at night-fall he heard the plash of\nwater, and knew not whether man or wild beast made it.  And not daring to\ncall out, he tapped a tree-trunk with his axe (some backwoodsman's sign\nof those days, we may presume), and he was answered.  And a forester came\nto him, leading his lord's horse; a man from the Wetterau, who knew the\nwoods far and wide, and told him all that he wanted to know.  And they\nslept side by side that night; and in the morning they blest each other,\nand each went his way.\n\nYes, there were not merely kings and wars, popes and councils, in those\nold days;--there were real human beings, just such as we might meet by\nthe wayside any hour, with human hearts and histories within them.  And\nwe will be thankful if but one of them, now and then, starts up out of\nthe darkness of twelve hundred years, like that good forester, and looks\nat us with human eyes, and goes his way again, blessing, and not unblest.\n\nAnd now Sturmi knew all that he needed to know; and after awhile,\nfollowing the counsel of the forester, he came to 'the blessed place,\nlong ago prepared of the Lord.  And when he saw it, he was filled with\nimmense joy, and went on exulting; for he felt that by the merits and\nprayers of the holy Bishop Boniface that place had been revealed to him.\nAnd he went about it, and about it, half the day; and the more he looked\non it the more he gave God thanks;' and those who know Fulda say, that\nSturmi had reason to give God thanks, and must have had a keen eye,\nmoreover, for that which man needs for wealth and prosperity, in soil and\nwater, meadow and wood.  So he blessed the place, and signed it with the\nsign of the Cross (in token that it belonged thenceforth neither to\ndevils nor fairies, but to his rightful Lord and Maker), and went back to\nhis cell, and thence a weary journey to St. Boniface, to tell him of the\nfair place which he had found at last.\n\nAnd St. Boniface went his weary way, either to Paris or to Aix, to Pepin\nand Carloman, kings of the Franks; and begged of them a grant of the\nAihen-loh, and all the land for four miles round, and had it.  And the\nnobles about gave up to him their rights of venison, and vert, and\npasture, and pannage of swine; and Sturmi and seven brethren set out\nthither, 'in the year of our Lord 744, in the first month (April,\npresumably), in the twelfth day of the month, unto the place prepared of\nthe Lord,' that they might do what?\n\nThat they might build an abbey.  Yes; but the question is, what building\nan abbey meant, not three hundred, nor five hundred, but eleven hundred\nyears ago--for centuries are long matters, and men and their works change\nin them.\n\nAnd then it meant this: Clearing the back woods for a Christian\nsettlement; an industrial colony, in which every man was expected to\nspend his life in doing good--all and every good which he could for his\nfellow-men.  Whatever talent he had he threw into the common stock; and\nworked, as he was found fit to work, at farming, gardening, carpentering,\nwriting, doctoring, teaching in the schools, or preaching to the heathen\nround.  In their common church they met to worship God; but also to ask\nfor grace and strength to do their work, as Christianizers and civilizers\nof mankind.  What Christianity and civilization they knew (and they knew\nmore than we are apt now to believe) they taught it freely; and therefore\nthey were loved, and looked up to as superior beings, as modern\nmissionaries, wherever they do their work even decently well, are looked\nup to now.\n\nSo because the work could be done in that way, and (as far as men then,\nor now, can see) in no other way, Pepin and Carloman gave Boniface the\nglade of oaks, that they might clear the virgin forest, and extend\ncultivation, and win fresh souls to Christ, instead of fighting, like the\nkings of this world, for the land which was already cleared, and the\npeople who were already Christian.\n\nIn two months' time they had cut down much of the forest; and then came\nSt. Boniface himself to see them, and with him a great company of\nworkmen, and chose a place for a church.  And St. Boniface went up to the\nhill which is yet called Bishop's Mount, that he might read his Bible in\npeace, away from kings and courts, and the noise of the wicked world; and\nhis workmen felled trees innumerable, and dug peat to burn lime withal;\nand then all went back again, and left the settlers to thrive and work.\n\nAnd thrive and work they did, clearing more land, building their church,\nploughing up their farm, drawing to them more and more heathen converts,\nmore and more heathen school-children; and St. Boniface came to see them\nfrom time to time, whenever he could get a holiday, and spent happy days\nin prayer and study, with his pupil and friend.  And ten years after,\nwhen St. Boniface was martyred at last by the Friesland heathens, and\ndied, as he had lived, like an apostle of God, then all the folk of\nMaintz wanted to bring his corpse home to their town, because he had been\nArchbishop there.  But he 'appeared in a dream to a certain deacon, and\nsaid: \"Why delay ye to take me home to Fulda, to my rest in the\nwilderness which God bath prepared for me?\"'\n\nSo St. Boniface sleeps at Fulda,--unless the French Republican armies dug\nup his bones, and scattered them, as they scattered holier things, to the\nwinds of heaven.  And all men came to worship at his tomb, after the\nfashion of those days.  And Fulda became a noble abbey, with its\ndom-church, library, schools, workshops, farmsteads, almshouses, and all\nthe appanages of such a place, in the days when monks were monks indeed.\nAnd Sturmi became a great man, and went through many troubles and\nslanders, and conquered in them all, because there was no fault found in\nhim, as in Daniel of old; and died in a good old age, bewept by\nthousands, who, but for him, would have been heathens still.  And the\nAihen-loh became rich corn-land and garden, and Fulda an abbey borough\nand a principality, where men lived in peace under mild rule, while the\nfeudal princes quarrelled and fought outside; and a great literary\ncentre, whose old records are now precious to the diggers among the bones\nof bygone times; and at last St. Sturmi and the Aihen-lob had so\ndeveloped themselves, that the latest record of the Abbots of Fulda which\nI have seen is this, bearing date about 1710:--\n\n'The arms of the most illustrious Lord and Prince, Abbot of Fulda,\nArchchancellor of the most Serene Empress, Primate of all Germany and\nGaul, and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.'  Developed, certainly: and\nnot altogether in the right direction.  For instead of the small beer,\nwhich they had promised St. Boniface to drink to the end of the world,\nthe abbots of Fulda had the best wine in Germany, and the best table too.\nBe that as it may, to have cleared the timber off the Aihen-lob, and\nplanted a Christian colony instead, was enough to make St. Sturmi hope\nthat he had not read his Bible altogether in vain.\n\nSurely such men as St. Sturmi were children of wisdom, put what sense on\nthe word you will.  In a dark, confused, lawless, cut-throat age, while\neverything was decided by the sword, they found that they could do no\ngood to themselves, or any man, by throwing their swords into either\nscale.  They would be men of peace, and see what could be done so.  Was\nthat not wise?  So they set to work.  They feared God exceedingly, and\nwalked with God.  Was not that wise?  They wrought righteousness, and\nwere merciful and kind, while kings and nobles were murdering around\nthem; pure and temperate, while other men were lustful and drunken; just\nand equal in all their ways, while other men were unjust and capricious;\nserving God faithfully, according to their light, while the people round\nthem were half or wholly heathen; content to do their work well on earth,\nand look for their reward in heaven, while the kings and nobles, the\nholders of the land, were full of insane ambition, every man trying to\nseize a scrap of ground from his neighbour, as if that would make them\nhappier.  Was that not wise?  Which was the wiser, the chief killing\nhuman beings, to take from them some few square miles which men had\nbrought into cultivation already, or the monk, leaving the cultivated\nland, and going out into the backwoods to clear the forest, and till the\nvirgin soil?  Which was the child of wisdom, I ask again?  And do not\ntell me that the old monk worked only for fanatical and superstitious\nends.  It is not so.  I know well his fanaticism and his superstition,\nand the depths of its ignorance and silliness: but he had more in him\nthan that.  Had he not, he would have worked no lasting work.  He was not\nonly the pioneer of civilization, but he knew that he was such.  He\nbelieved that all knowledge came from God, even that which taught a man\nto clear the forest, and plant corn instead; and he determined to spread\nsuch knowledge as he had wherever he could.  He was a wiser man than the\nheathen Saxons, even than the Christian Franks, around him; a better\nscholar, a better thinker, better handicraftsman, better farmer; and he\ndid not keep his knowledge to himself.  He did not, as some tell you,\nkeep the Bible to himself.  It is not so; and those who say so, in this\ngeneration, ought to be ashamed of themselves.  The monk knew his Bible\nwell himself, and he taught it.  Those who learnt from him to read,\nlearnt to read their Bibles.  Those who did not learn (of course the vast\nmajority, in days when there was no printing), he taught by sermons, by\npictures, afterward by mystery and miracle plays.  The Bible was not\nforbidden to the laity till centuries afterwards--and forbidden then,\nwhy?  Because the laity throughout Europe knew too much about the Bible,\nand not too little.  Because the early monks had so ingrained the mind of\nthe masses, throughout Christendom, with Bible stories, Bible personages,\nthe great facts, and the great doctrines, of our Lord's life, that the\nmasses knew too much; that they could contrast too easily, and too\nfreely, the fallen and profligate monks of the 15th and 16th centuries,\nwith those Bible examples, which the old monks of centuries before had\ntaught their forefathers.  Then the clergy tried to keep from the laity,\nbecause it testified against themselves, the very book which centuries\nbefore they had taught them to love and know too well.  In a word, the\nold monk missionary taught all he knew to all who would learn, just as\nour best modern missionaries do; and was loved, and obeyed, and looked on\nas a superior being, as they are.\n\nOf course he did not know how far civilization would extend.  He could\nnot foretell railroads and electric telegraphs, any more than he could\npolitical economy, or sanitary science.  But the best that he knew, he\ntaught--and did also, working with his own hands.  He was faithful in a\nfew things, and God made him ruler over many things.  For out of those\nmonasteries sprang--what did not spring?  They restored again and again\nsound law and just government, when the good old Teutonic laws, and the\nRoman law also, was trampled underfoot amid the lawless strife of\nambition and fury.  Under their shadow sprang up the towns with their\ncorporate rights, their middle classes, their artizan classes.  They were\nthe physicians, the alms-givers, the relieving officers, the\nschoolmasters of the middle-age world.  They first taught us the great\nprinciple of the division of labour, to which we owe, at this moment,\nthat England is what she is, instead of being covered with a horde of\npeasants, each making and producing everything for himself, and starving\neach upon his rood of ground.  They transcribed or composed all the books\nof the then world; many of them spent their lives in doing nothing but\nwriting; and the number of books, even of those to be found in single\nmonasteries, considering the tedious labour of copying, is altogether\nastonishing.  They preserved to us the treasures of classical antiquity.\nThey discovered for us the germs of all our modern inventions.  They\nbrought in from abroad arts and new knowledge; and while they taught men\nto know that they had a common humanity, a common Father in heaven taught\nthem also to profit by each other's wisdom instead of remaining in\nisolated ignorance.  They, too, were the great witnesses against feudal\ncaste.  With them was neither high-born nor low-born, rich nor poor:\nworth was their only test; the meanest serf entering there might become\nthe lord of knights and vassals, the counsellor of kings and princes.  Men\nmay talk of democracy--those old monasteries were the most democratic\ninstitutions the world had ever till then seen.  'A man's a man for a'\nthat,' was not only talked of in them, but carried out in practice--only\nnot in anarchy, and as a cloak for licentiousness: but under those\nsafeguards of strict discipline, and almost military order, without which\nmen may call themselves free, and yet be really only slaves to their own\npassions.  Yes, paradoxical as it may seem, in those monasteries was\npreserved the sacred fire of modern liberty, through those feudal\ncenturies when all the outside world was doing its best to trample it\nout.  Remember, as a single instance, that in the Abbot's lodging at Bury\nSt. Edmunds, the Magna Charta was drawn out, before being presented to\nJohn at Runymede.  I know what they became afterwards, better than most\ndo here; too well to defile my lips, or your ears, with tales too true.\nThey had done their work, and they went.  Like all things born in time,\nthey died; and decayed in time; and the old order changed, giving place\nto the new; and God fulfilled himself in many ways.  But in them, too, he\nfulfilled himself.  They were the best things the world had seen; the\nonly method of Christianizing and civilizing semi-barbarous Europe.  Like\nall human plans and conceptions, they contained in themselves original\nsin; idolatry, celibacy, inhuman fanaticism; these were their three roots\nof bitterness; and when they bore the natural fruit of immorality, the\nmonasteries fell with a great and just destruction.  But had not those\nmonasteries been good at first, and noble at first; had not the men in\nthem been better and more useful men than the men outside, do you think\nthey would have endured for centuries?  They would not even have\nestablished themselves at all.  They would soon, in those stormy times,\nhave been swept off the face of the earth.  Ill used they often were,\nplundered and burnt down.  But men found that they were good.  Their own\nplunderers found that they could not do without them; and repented, and\nhumbled themselves, and built them up again, to be centres of justice and\nmercy and peace, amid the wild weltering sea of war and misery.  For all\nthings endure, even for a generation, only by virtue of the good which is\nin them.  By the Spirit of God in them they live, as do all created\nthings; and when he taketh away their breath they die, and return again\nto their dust.\n\nAnd what was the original sin of them?  We can hardly say that it was\ntheir superstitious and partially false creed: because that they held in\ncommon with all Europe.  It was rather that they had identified\nthemselves with, and tried to realize on earth, one of the worst\nfalsehoods of that creed--celibacy.  Not being founded on the true and\nonly ground of all society, family life, they were merely artificial and\nself-willed arrangements of man's invention, which could not develop to\nany higher form.  And when the sanctity of marriage was revindicated at\nthe Reformation, the monasteries, having identified themselves with\ncelibacy, naturally fell.  They could not partake in the Reformation\nmovement, and rise with it into some higher form of life, as the laity\noutside did.  I say, they were altogether artificial things.  The Abbot\nmight be called the Abba, Father, of his monks: but he was not their\nfather--just as when young ladies now play at being nuns, they call their\nsuperior, Mother: but all the calling in the world will not make that\nsacred name a fact and a reality, as they too often find out.\n\nAnd celibacy brought serious evils from the first.  It induced an\nexcited, hysterical tone of mind, which is most remarkable in the best\nmen; violent, querulous, suspicious, irritable, credulous, visionary; at\nbest more womanly than manly; alternately in tears and in raptures.  You\nnever get in their writings anything of that manly calmness, which we so\ndeservedly honour, and at which we all aim for ourselves.  They are\nbombastic; excited; perpetually mistaking virulence for strength, putting\nus in mind for ever of the allocutions of the Popes.  Read the writings\nof one of the best of monks, and of men, who ever lived, the great St.\nBernard, and you will be painfully struck by this hysterical element.  The\nfact is, that their rule of life, from the earliest to the latest,--from\nthat of St. Benedict of Casino, 'father of all monks,' to that of Loyola\nthe Jesuit, was pitched not too low, but too high.  It was an ideal\nwhich, for good or for evil, could only be carried out by new converts,\nby people in a state of high religious excitement, and therefore the\nhistory of the monastic orders is just that of the protestant sects.  We\nhear of continual fallings off from their first purity; of continual\nexcitements, revivals, and startings of new orders, which hoped to\nrealize the perfection which the old orders could not.  You must bear\nthis in mind, as you read mediaeval history.  You will be puzzled to know\nwhy continual new rules and new orders sprung up.  They were so many\nrevivals, so many purist attempts at new sects.  You will see this very\nclearly in the three great revivals which exercised such enormous\ninfluence on the history of the 13th, the 16th and the 17th centuries,--I\nmean the rise first of the Franciscans and Dominicans, next of the\nJesuits, and lastly of the Port Royalists.  They each professed to\nrestore monachism to what it had been at first; to realize the unnatural\nand impossible ideal.\n\nAnother serious fault of these monasteries may be traced to their\nartificial celibate system.  I mean their avarice.  Only one generation\nafter St. Sturmi, Charlemagne had to make indignant laws against Abbots\nwho tried to get into their hands the property of everybody around them:\nbut in vain.  The Abbots became more and more the great landholders, till\ntheir power was intolerable.  The reasons are simple enough.  An abbey\nhad no children between whom to divide its wealth, and therefore more\nland was always flowing in and concentrating, and never breaking up\nagain; while almost every Abbot left his personalities, all his private\nsavings and purchases, to his successor.\n\nThen again, in an unhappy hour, they discovered that the easiest way of\ngetting rich was by persuading sinners, and weak persons, to secure the\nsafety of their souls by leaving land to the Church, in return for the\nprayers and masses of monks; and that shameful mine of wealth was worked\nby them for centuries, in spite of statutes of mortmain, and other checks\nwhich the civil power laid on them, very often by most detestable means.\nOne is shocked to find good men lending themselves to such base tricks:\nbut we must recollect, that there has always been among men a public and\na private conscience, and that these two, alas! have generally been very\ndifferent.  It is an old saying, that 'committees have no consciences;'\nand it is too true.  A body of men acting in concert for a public purpose\nwill do things which they would shrink from with disgust, if the same\ntrick would merely put money into their private purses; and this is too\noften the case when the public object is a good one.  Then the end seems\nto sanctify the means, to almost any amount of chicanery.\n\nSo it was with those old monks.  An abbey had no conscience.  An order of\nmonks had no conscience.  A Benedictine, a Dominican, a Franciscan, who\nhad not himself a penny in the world, and never intended to have one,\nwould play tricks, lie, cheat, slander, forge, for the honour and the\nwealth of his order; when for himself, and in himself, he may have been\nan honest God-fearing man enough.  So it was; one more ugly fruit of an\nunnatural attempt to be not good men, but something more than men; by\ntrying to be more than men, they ended by being less than men.  That was\ntheir sin, and that sin, when it had conceived, brought forth death.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE X--THE LOMBARD LAWS\n\n\nI have tried to shew you how the Teutonic nations were Christianized.  I\nhave tried to explain to you why the clergy who converted them were,\nnevertheless, more or less permanently antagonistic to them.  I shall\nhave, hereafter, to tell you something of one of the most famous\ninstances of that antagonism: of the destruction of the liberties of the\nLombards by that Latin clergy.  But at first you ought to know something\nof the manners of these Lombards; and that you may learn best by studying\ntheir Code.\n\nThey are valuable to you, as giving you a fair specimen of the laws of an\nold Teutonic people.  You may profitably compare them with the old\nGothic, Franco-Salic, Burgundian, Anglo-Saxon, and Scandinavian laws, all\nformed on the same primaeval model, agreeing often in minute details, and\nbetokening one primaeval origin, of awful antiquity.  By studying them,\nmoreover, you may gain some notion of that primaeval liberty and self-\ngovernment, common at first to all the race, but preserved alone by\nEngland;--to which the descendants of these very Lombards are at this\nvery moment so manfully working their way back.\n\nThese laws were collected and published in writing by king Rothar, A.D.\n643, 76 years after Alboin came into Italy.  The cause, he says, was the\ncontinual wearying of the poor, and the superfluous exactions, and even\nviolence, of the strong against those who were weak.  They are the 'laws\nof our fathers, as far as we have learnt them from ancient men, and are\npublished with the counsel and consent of our princes, judges, and all\nour most prosperous army,' i.e. the barons, or freemen capable of bearing\narms; 'and are confirmed according to the custom of our nation by\ngarathinx,' that is, as far as I can ascertain from Grimm's German Law,\nby giving an earnest, garant, or warrant of the bargain.\n\nAmong these Lombards, as among our English forefathers, when a man\nthingavit, i.e. donavit, a gift or bequest to any one, it was necessary,\naccording to law CLXXII., to do it before gisiles, witnesses, and to give\na garathinx, or earnest, of his bequest--a halm of straw, a turf, a cup\nof drink, a piece of money--as to this day a drover seals his bargain\nwith a shilling, and a commercial traveller with a glass of liquor.\nWhether Rothar gave the garathinx to his barons, or his barons to him, I\ndo not understand: but at least it is clear from the use of this one word\nthat the publication of these laws was a 'social contract'--a distinct\ncompact between king and people.  From all which you will perceive at\nonce that these Lombards, like all Teutons, were a free people, under a\nrough kind of constitutional monarchy.  They would have greeted with\nlaughter the modern fable of the divine right of kings, if by that they\nwere expected to understand that the will of the king was law, or that\nthe eldest son of a certain family had any God-given ipso-facto right to\nsucceed his father.  Sixteen kings, says the preface, had reigned from\nAgilmund to Rothar; and seven times had the royal race been changed.  That\nthe king should belong to one of the families who derived their pedigree\nfrom Wodin, and that a son should, as natural, succeed his father, were\nold rules: but the barons would, as all history shews, make little of\ncrowning a younger son instead of an elder, if the younger were a hero,\nand the elder an 'arga'--a lazy loon; and little, also, would they make\nof setting aside the whole royal family, and crowning the man who would\ndo their business best.  The king was, as this preface and these laws\nshew, the commander in chief of the exercitus, the militia, and therefore\nof every free man in the state; (for all were bound to fight when\nrequired).  He was also the supreme judge, the head of the executive,\ndispenser and fountain of law: but with no more power of making the law,\nof breaking the law, or of arbitrarily depriving a man of his property,\nthan an English sovereign has now; and his power was quamdiu se bene\ngesserit, and no longer, as history proves in every page.\n\nThe doctrine of the divine right of kings as understood in England in the\nseventeenth century, and still in some continental countries, was, as far\nas I can ascertain, invented by the early popes, not for the purpose of\nexalting the kings, but of enslaving them, and through them the nations.\nA king and his son's sons had divine 'right to govern wrong' not from\nGod, but from the vicar of God and the successor of St. Peter, to whom\nGod had given the dominion of the whole earth, and who had the right to\nanoint, or to depose, whomsoever he would.  Even in these old laws, we\nsee that new idea obtruding itself.  'The king's heart,' says one of them\n'is in the hand of God.'  That is a text of Scripture.  What it was meant\nto mean, one cannot doubt, or by whom it was inserted.  The 'Chancellor,'\nor whoever else transcribed those laws in Latin, was, of course, a\ncleric, priest or monk.  From his hand comes the first hint of arbitrary\npower; the first small blot of a long dark stain of absolutism, which was\nto darken and deepen through centuries of tyranny and shame.\n\nBut to plead the divine right of kings, in a country which has thrown off\nits allegiance to the pope, is to assert the conclusion of a syllogism,\nthe major and minor premiss of which are both denied by the assertor.  The\narguments for such a right drawn from the Old Testament, which were\ncommon among the high-church party from James I. to James II. and the\nNonjurors, are really too inconsequent to require more than a passing\nsmile.  How can you prove that a king has the power to make laws, from\nthe history of the Jewish nation, when that very history represents it\nall through as bound by a primaeval and divinely revealed law, to which\nkings and people were alike subject?  How can you prove that the eldest\nson's eldest son has a divine right to wear the crown as 'God's\nanointed,' when the very persons to whom that title is given are\ngenerally either not eldest sons, or not of royal race at all?  The rule\nthat the eldest son's eldest son should succeed, has been proved by\nexperience to be in practice a most excellent one: but it rests, as in\nEngland, so in Lombardy, or Spain, or Frankreich of old time, simply upon\nthe consent of the barons, and the will of the thing or parliament.\n\nThere is a sentimental admiration of 'Imperialism' growing up now-a-days,\nunder the pretentious titles of 'hero-worship,' and 'strong government;'\nand the British constitution is represented as a clumsy and artificial\narrangement of the year 1688.  1688 after Christ?  1688 before Christ\nwould be nearer the mark.  It is as old, in its essentials, as the time\nwhen not only all the Teutons formed one tribe, but when Teutons and\nScandinavians were still united--and when that was, who dare say?  We at\nleast brought the British constitution with us out of the bogs and moors\nof Jutland, along with our smock-frocks and leather gaiters, brown bills\nand stone axes; and it has done us good service, and will do, till we\nhave carried it right round the world.\n\nAs for these Lombard kings, they arose on this wise.  After Alboin's\ndeath the Lombards were for ten years under dukes, and evil times came,\nevery man doing what was right in his own eyes; enlarging their frontier\nby killing the Roman landholders, and making the survivors give them up a\nportion of their lands, as Odoacer first, and the Ostrogoths next, had\ndone.  At last, tired of lawlessness, dissension and weakness, and\nseemingly dreading an invasion from Childebert, king of the Franks, they\nchose a king, Autharis the son of Cleph, and called him Flavius, by which\nRoman title the Lombard kings were afterwards known.  Moreover, they\nagreed to give him (I conclude only once for all) the half of all their\nsubstance, to support the kingdom.  There were certain tributes\nafterwards paid into the king's treasury every three years; and certain\nfines, and also certain portions of the property of those who died\nwithout direct heirs, seem to have made up the revenue.  Whereon, Paul\nsays, perfect peace and justice followed.\n\nNow for the laws, which were reduced into writing about sixty years\nafterwards.  The first thing that you will remark about these laws, is\nthat duel, wager of battle under shield, 'diremptio causae per pugnam sub\nuno scuto,' is the earliest form of settling a lawsuit.  If you cannot\nagree, fight it out fairly, either by yourself or per campionem, a\nchampion or kemper man, and God defend the right.  Then follows 'faida,'\nblood-feud, from generation to generation.  To stop which a man is\nallowed to purge himself by oath; his own and that of certain neighbours,\ntwelve in general, who will swear their belief in his innocence.  This\nwas common to the northern nations, and was the origin of our trial by\njury.  If guilty, the offender has to pay the weregeld, or legal price,\nset upon the injury he has inflicted.  When the composition is paid,\nthere is an end of the feud; if after taking the composition the\nplaintiff avenges himself, he has to pay it back.  Hence our system of\nfines.\n\nThis method of composition by fines runs through all the Teutonic laws;\nand makes the punishment of death, at least among freemen, very rare.\n\nPunishments by stripes, by imprisonment, or by cruel or degrading\nmethods, there are none.  The person of a freeman is sacred, 'Vincire et\nverberare nefas,' as Tacitus said of these Germans 600 years before.\n\nThe offences absolutely punishable by death seem to be, treason against\nthe king's life; cowardice in battle; concealment of robbers; mutinies\nand attempts to escape out of the realm; and therefore (under the then\nmilitary organization) to escape from the duty of every freeman, to bear\narms in defence of the land.\n\nMore than a hundred of these laws define the different fines, or\n'weregelds,' by which each offence is to be compounded for, from 900\nsolidi aurei, gold pieces, for a murder, downwards to the smallest breach\nof the peace.  Each limb has its special price.  For the loss of an eye,\nhalf the price of the whole man is to be paid.  A front tooth is worth\n16s., solidi aurei; their loss being a disfigurement; but a back tooth is\nworth only 8s.  A slave's tooth, on the other hand, is worth but 4s.; and\nin every case, the weregeld of a slave is much less than that of a\nfreeman.\n\nThe sacredness of the household, and the strong sense of the individual\nrights of property, are to be remarked.  One found in a 'court,'\ncourtledge (or homestead), by night (as we say in old English), may be\nkilled.  You know, I dare say, that in many Teutonic and Scandinavian\nnations the principle that a man's house is his castle was so strongly\nheld that men were not allowed to enter a condemned man's house to carry\nhim off to execution; but if he would not come out, could only burn the\nhouse over his head.  Shooting, or throwing a lance into any man's\nhomestead, costs 20s.  'Oberos,' or 'curtis ruptura,' that is, making\nviolent entry into a man's homestead, costs 20s. also.  Nay, merely to\nfetch your own goods out of another man's house secretly, and without\nasking leave, was likewise punished as oberos.\n\nSo of personal honour.  'Schelte' or insult, for instance, to call a man\narga, i.e. a lazy loon, is a serious offence.  If the defendant will\nconfess that he said it in a passion, and will take oath that he never\nknew the plaintiff to be arga, he must still pay 12_s._; but if he will\nstand to his word, then he must fight it out by duel, sub uno scuto.\n\nThe person, for the same reason, was sacred.  If a man had lain in wait\nfor a freeman, 'cum virtute et solatio,' with valour and comfort, i.e.\nwith armed men to back him, and had found him standing or walking simply,\nand had shamefully held him, or 'battiderit,' committed assault and\nbattery on him, he must pay half the man's weregeld; the 'turpiter et\nridiculum' being considered for a freeman as half as bad as death.  Here\nyou find in private life, as well as in public, the vincire et verberare\nnefas.\n\nIf, again, one had a mind to lose 80 shillings of gold, he need but to\ncommit the offence of 'meerworphin,' a word which will puzzle you\nsomewhat, till you find it to signify 'mare warping,' to warp, or throw\none's neighbour off his mare or horse.\n\nA blow with the closed fist, again, costs three shillings: but one with\nthe open hand, six.  The latter is an insult as well as an injury.  A\nfreeman is struck with the fist, but a slave with the palm of the hand.\nBreaking a man's head costs six solidi.  But if one had broken his skull,\nthen (as in the Alemannic laws) one must pay twelve shillings, and twelve\nmore for each fracture up to three--after which they are not counted.  But\na piece of bone must come out which will make a sound when thrown into a\nshield twelve feet off; which feet are to be measured by that of a man of\nmiddle stature.  From which strange law may be deduced, not only the\ntoughness of the Lombard brain-pan, but the extreme necessity of defining\neach particular, in order to prevent subsequent disputes, followed up by\na blood-feud, which might be handed down from father to son.  For by\naccepting the legal fine, the injured man expressly renounced his\nprimaeval right of feud.\n\nThen follow some curious laws in favour of the masters of Como, Magistri\nComacenes, who seem to have been a guild of architects, perhaps the\noriginal germ of the great society of free-masons--belonging, no doubt,\nto the Roman population--who were settled about the lake of Como, and\nwere hired, on contract, (as the laws themselves express,) to build for\nthe Lombards, who of course had no skill to make anything beyond a skin-\ntent or a log-hall.\n\nThen follow laws against incendiaries; a fine for damage by accidental\nhouse-fire, if the offender have carried fire more than nine feet from\nthe hearth; a law against leaving a fire alight on a journey, as in the\nAustralian colonies now.  Then laws to protect mills; important matters\nin those days, being unknown to the Lombards before their entrance into\nItaly.\n\nThen laws of inheritance; on which I shall remark, that natural sons, if\nfree, are to have a portion of their father's inheritance; but less than\nthe legitimate sons: but that a natural son born of a slave remains a\nslave, 'nisi pater liberum thingaverit.'  This cruel law was the law of\nRome and of the Church; our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, to their honour,\nheld the reverse rule.  'Semper a patre, non a matre, generationis ordo\ntexitur.'  Next, it is to be remarked, that no free woman can live in\nLombardy, or, I believe, in any Teutonic state, save under the 'mundium'\nof some one.  You should understand this word 'mund.'  Among most of the\nTeutonic races, women, slaves, and youths, at least not of age to carry\narms, were under the mund of some one.  Of course, primarily the father,\nhead of the family, and if he died, an uncle, elder brother, &c.  The\nmarried woman was, of course, under the mund of her husband.  He was\nanswerable for the good conduct of all under his mund; he had to pay\ntheir fines if they offended; and he was bound, on the other hand, to\nprotect them by all lawful means.\n\nThis system still lingers in the legal status of women in England, for\ngood and evil; the husband is more or less answerable for the wife's\ndebts; the wife, till lately, was unable to gain property apart from her\nhusband's control; the wife is supposed, in certain cases of law, to act\nunder the husband's compulsion.  All these, and many others, are relics\nof the old system of mund for women; and that system has, I verily\nbelieve, succeeded.  It has called out, as no other system could have\ndone, chivalry in the man.  It has made him feel it a duty and an honour\nto protect the physically weaker sex.  It has made the woman feel that\nher influence, whether in the state or in the family, is to be not\nphysical and legal, but moral and spiritual; and that it therefore rests\non a ground really nobler and deeper than that of the man.  The modern\nexperiments for emancipating women from all mund, and placing them on a\nphysical and legal equality with the man, may be right, and may be\nultimately successful.  We must not hastily prejudge them.  But of this\nwe may be almost certain; that if they succeed, they will cause a wide-\nspread revolution in society, of which the patent danger will be, the\ndestruction of the feeling of chivalry, and the consequent brutalization\nof the male sex.\n\nThen follow laws relating to marriage and women, of which I may remark,\nthat (as in Tacitus' time), the woman brings her dowry, or 'fader fee,'\nto her husband; and that the morning after the wedding she receives from\nhim, if he be content with her, her morgen gap, or morning gift; which\nremains her own private property, unless she misbehaves.\n\nThe honour of women, whether in fact or merely in fame, is protected by\nmany severe laws, among which I shall only notice, that the calling a\nfree woman 'striga' (witch) is severely punishable.  If any one does so\nwho has the mund of her, except her father or brother, he loses his mund.\n\nOn the whole, woman's condition seems inferior to man's on some points:\nbut superior on others.  e.g. A woman's weregeld--the price of her\nlife--is 1200 solidi; while the man's is only 900.  For he can defend\nhimself, but she cannot.  On the other hand, if a man kill his wife, he\npays only the 1200 solidi, and loses her dowry: but if she kill him, she\ndies.\n\nAgain.  If a free man be caught thieving, up to the amount of 20 siliquae,\nbeans, _i.e._ one gold piece--though Pope Gregory makes the solidus\n(aureus) 24 siliquae--he replaces the theft, and pays 80 solidi, or dies;\nand a slave one half, or dies.\n\nBut if a free woman is taken in theft, she only replaces it; for she has\nsuffered for her wrong-doing, and must lay it to her own shame, that she\nhas tried to do 'operam indecentem,' a foul deed.  And if an aldia or\nslave-woman steals, her master replaces the theft, and pays 40 solidi,\nminus the value of the stolen goods--and beats her afterwards, I presume,\nif he chooses.\n\nAnd now concerning slaves, who seem to have been divided into three\nclasses.\n\nThe Aldius and Aldia, masculine and feminine, who were of a higher rank\nthan other slaves.\n\nThe Aldius could marry a free woman, while the slave marrying a free\nwoman is punishable by death; and, as experimentum crucis, if an Aldius\nmarried an Aldia or a free woman, the children followed the father.  If\nhe married a slave, the children followed the mother, and became slaves\nof his lord.\n\nThe Aldius, again, may not sell his lord's land or slaves, which\nindicates that he held land and slaves under his lord.\n\nWhat the word means, Grimm does not seem to know.  He thinks it\nsynonymous with 'litus,' of whom we hear as early as Tacitus' time, as\none of the four classes, nobles, freemen, liti, slaves; and therefore\nlibertus, a freedman.  But the word does not merely mean, it appears, a\nslave half freed by his master; but one rather hereditarily half free,\nand holding a farm under his lord.\n\nDio, however, is said to be an old German word for a slave; and it is\npossible that aldius (a word only known, seemingly, in Lombardy) may have\nsignified originally an old slave, an old Roman colonus, or peasant of\nsome sort, found by the conquerors in possession of land, and allowed to\nretain, and till it, from father to son.  We, in England, had the same\ndistinction between 'Laet,' or 'villains' settled on the land, glebae\nadscripti, and mere thralls or theows, slaves pure and simple.  No doubt\nsuch would have better terms than the mere mancipia--slaves taken in war,\nor bought--for the simple reason, that they would be agriculturists,\npractised in the Roman tillage, understanding the mysteries of\nirrigation, artificial grasses, and rotation of crops, as well as the\nculture of vines, fruit, and olives.\n\nNext to them you have different sorts of slaves; Servus massarius, who\nseems to be also rusticanus, one who takes care of his lord's 'massa' or\nfarm, and is allowed a peculium, it seems, some animals of his own, which\nhe may not sell, though he may give them away.  And again, servus doctus,\nan educated household slave, whose weregeld is higher than that of\nothers.\n\nThe laws relating to fugitive slaves seem as merciful as such things can\nbe; and the Lombards have always had the credit of being kind and easy\nmasters.\n\nConnected with fugitive slaves are laws about portunarii, ferrymen, who\nappear, as you know, in the old ballads as very important, and generally\nformidable men.  The fight between Von Troneg Hagen and the old ferryman\nin the Nibelungen Lied, is a famous instance of the ancient ferrymen's\nprowess.  One can easily understand how necessary strict laws were, to\nprevent these ferrymen carrying over fugitive slaves, outlaws, and indeed\nany one without due caution; for each man was bound to remain in his own\nprovince, that he might be ready when called on for military service; and\na traveller to foreign parts was looked on as a deserter from his liege-\nlord and country.\n\nThen follow a great number of laws, to me both amusing and instructive,\nas giving us some glimpse of the country life of those Lombards in the\n8th century.\n\nScattered in the vast woodlands and marshes lie small farms, enclosed by\nditches and posts and rails, from which if you steal a rail, you are\nfined 1s., if you steal a post, 3s.  There were stake fences, which you\nmust be careful in making, for if a horse stakes himself by leaping in,\nyou pay nothing; but if he does so by leaping out, you pay the price of\nthe horse.  Moreover, you must leave no sharp stakes standing out of the\nhedge; for if a man or beast wounds himself thereby in passing, you have\nto pay full weregeld.\n\nWalking over sown land, or sending a woman of your mundium to do so, in\naccordance with an ancient superstition, is a severe offence; so is\ninjuring a vineyard, or taking more than tres uvae (bunches of grapes, I\npresume) from the vine.  Injuring landmarks cut on the trees (theclaturas\nand signaturas) or any other boundary mark, is severely punishable either\nin a slave, or in a freeman.\n\nIn the vast woods range herds of swine, and in the pastures, horses,\ncared for by law; for to take a herd of swine or brood mares as pledge,\nwithout the king's leave, is punishable by death, or a fine of 900_s._\nOxen or horses used to the yoke can be taken as pledge; but only by leave\nof the king, or of the schuldhais (local magistrate), on proof that the\ndebtor has no other property; for by them he gets his living.  If,\nhowever, you find pigs routing in your enclosure, you may kill one, under\ncertain restrictions, but not the 'sornpair,' sounder boar, who 'battit\net vincit' all the other boars in the sounder (old English for herd).\n\nRival swineherds, as is to be supposed, 'battidunt inter se,' and\n'scandalum faciunt,' often enough.  Whereon the law advises them to fight\nit out, and then settle the damage between them.\n\nHorses are cared for.  To ride another man's horse costs 2s.; to dock or\ncrop him, eight-fold the damage; and so on of hurting another man's\nhorse.  Moreover, if your neighbour's dog flies at you, you may hit him\nwith a stick or little sword, and kill him, but if you throw a stone\nafter him and kill him, you being then out of danger, you must give the\nmaster a new dog.\n\nThen there are quaint laws about hunting; and damage caused by wild\nbeasts caught in snares or brought to bay.  A wounded stag belongs to the\nman who has wounded it for twenty-four hours: but after that to anyone.\nTame deer, it is observable, are kept; and to kill a doe or fawn costs\n6s., to kill a buck, 12s.  Tame hawks, cranes, and swans, if taken in\nsnares, cost 6s.  But any man may take flying hawks out of his\nneighbour's wood, but not out of the Gaias Regis, the king's gehage,\nhaies, hedges, or enclosed parks.\n\nAnd now, I have but one more law to mention--would God that it had been\nin force in later centuries--\n\n'Let no one presume to kill another man's aldia or ancilla, as a striga,\nwitch, which is called masca; because it is not to be believed by\nChristian minds, that a woman can eat up a live man from within; and if\nany one does so he shall pay 60s. as her price, and for his fault, half\nto her master, and half to the king.'\n\nThis last strange law forces on us a serious question, one which may have\nbeen suggesting itself to you throughout my lecture.  If these were the\nold Teutonic laws, this the old Teutonic liberty, the respect for man as\nman, for woman as woman, whence came the opposite element?  How is it\nthat these liberties have been lost throughout almost all Europe?  How is\nit that a system of law prevailed over the whole continent, up to the\nFrench revolution, and prevails still in too many countries, the very\nopposite of all this?\n\nI am afraid that I must answer, Mainly through the influence of the Roman\nclergy during the middle age.\n\nThe original difference of race between the clergy and the Teutonic\nconquerors, which I have already pointed out to you, had a curious\neffect, which lingers to this day.  It placed the Church in antagonism,\nmore or less open, to the civil administration of justice.  The criminal\nwas looked on by the priest rather as a sufferer to be delivered, than an\noffender to be punished.  All who are conversant with the lives of saints\nmust recollect cases in which the saint performs even miracles on behalf\nof the condemned.  Mediaeval tales are full of instances of the same\nfeeling which prompted the Italian brigands, even in our own times, to\ncarry a leaden saint's image in his hat as a safeguard.  In an old French\nfabliau, for instance, we read how a certain highway-robber was always\ncareful to address his prayers to the Blessed Virgin, before going out to\nmurder and steal; and found the practice pay him well.  For when he was\ntaken and hanged, our Lady put her 'mains blanches' under his feet, and\nsupported him invisibly for a whole day, till the executioner, finding it\nimpossible to kill him, was forced to let him retire peaceably into a\nmonastery, where he lived and died devoutly.  We may laugh at such\nfancies; or express, if we will, our abhorrence of their immorality: but\nit will be more useful to examine into the causes which produced them.\nThey seem to have been twofold.  In the first place, the Church did not\nlook on the Teutonic laws, whether Frank, Burgund, Goth or Lombard, as\nlaw at all.  Her law, whether ecclesiastical or civil, was formed on the\nRoman model; and by it alone she wished herself, and those who were under\nher protection, to be judged.  Next--and this count is altogether to her\nhonour--law, such as it was, was too often administered, especially by\nthe Franks, capriciously and brutally; while the servile population,\nalways the great majority, can hardly be said to have been under the\nprotection of law at all.  No one can read the pages of Fredegarius, or\nGregory of Tours, without seeing that there must have been cases weekly,\neven daily, which called on the clergy, in the name of justice and\nhumanity, to deliver if possible, the poor from him that spoiled him;\nwhich excused fully the rise of the right of sanctuary, and of benefit of\nclergy, afterwards so much abused; which made it a pious duty in prelates\nto work themselves into power at court, and there, as the 'Chancellors'\nof princes, try to get something like regular justice done; and naturally\nenough, to remodel the laws of each nation on the time-honoured and\nscientific Roman form.  Nevertheless, the antagonism of the Church to the\nnational and secular law remained for centuries.  It died out first\nperhaps, in England, after the signature of Magna Charta.  For then the\nEnglish prelates began to take up that truly Protestant and national\nattitude which issued in the great Reformation: but it lingers still in\nIreland and in Italy.  It lingered in France up to the French revolution,\nas may be seen notably in the account of the execution of the Marquise de\nBrinvilliers, by the priest who attended her.  Horror at her atrocious\ncrimes is quite swallowed up, in the mind of the good father, by sympathy\nwith her suffering; and the mob snatch her bones from the funeral pile,\nand keep them as the relics of a saint.\n\nBut more.  While the Roman clergy did real good to Europe, in preserving\nthe scientific elements of Roman law, they did harm by preserving\ntherewith other elements--Roman chicane, and Roman cruelty.  In that\nrespect, as in others, 'Rome conquered her conquerors;' and the\ndescendants of those Roman lawyers, whom the honest Teutons called\nadders, and as adders killed them down, destroyed, in course of time,\nTeutonic freedom.\n\nBut those descendants were, alas! the clergy.  Weak, they began early to\nadopt those arms of quibbling and craft, which religious men too often\nfancy are the proper arms of 'the saints' against 'the world.'  Holding\nhuman nature in suspicion and contempt, they early gave way to the maxim\nof the savage, that every one is likely to be guilty till proved\ninnocent, and therefore licensed the stupid brutalities of torture to\nextract confession.  Holding self-degradation to be a virtue, and\nindependence as a carnal vice; glorying in being slaves themselves, till\nto become, under the name of holy obedience, 'perinde ac cadaver,' was\nthe ideal of a good monk; and accustomed, themselves, to degrading\ncorporal punishment; they did not shrink from inflicting, even on boys\nand women, tortures as dastardly as indecent.  Looking on the world, and\non the future of the human race, through a medium compared with which the\ndarkest fancies of a modern fanatic are bright and clear, they did not\nshrink from inflicting penalties, the very mention of which makes the\nblood run cold.  Suspecting, if not alternately envying and despising,\nall women who were not nuns; writing openly of the whole sex (until\nunsexed) as the snare and curse of mankind; and possessed by a Manichaean\nbelief in the power and presence of innumerable demons, whose especial\nvictims were women; they erected witch-hunting into a science; they\npandered to, and actually formalized, and justified on scientific\ngrounds, the most cruel and cowardly superstitions of the mob; and again\nand again raised literal crusades against women, torturing, exposing,\nburning, young and old, not merely in the witch-mania of the 17th\ncentury, but through the whole middle age.  It is a detestable page of\nhistory.  I ask those who may think my statement exaggerated, to consult\nthe original authorities.  Let them contrast Rothar's law about the\nimpossibility of witchcraft, with the pages of the Malleus Maleficarum,\nNider's Fornicarium, or Delrio the Jesuit, and see for themselves who\nwere the false teachers.  And if they be told, that the cruelties of the\nInquisition were only those in vogue according to the secular law of the\nday, let them recollect that the formulizers of that law were none other\nthan the celibate Roman clergy.\n\nI do not deny that there was in all this a just, though a terrible,\nNemesis.  What was the essential fault of these Lombard laws--indeed of\nall the Teutonic codes?  This--that there was one law for the free man,\nanother for the slave.  Ecclesiastical dominion was necessary, to make\none law for all classes, even though it were a law of common slavery.  As\nthe free had done to the slave, even so, and far worse, would the Roman\nclergy do to them.  The Albigense persecutors, burning sixty ladies in\none day; Conrad of Marpurg scourging his own sovereign, St. Elizabeth;\nshaving the Count of Saiym's head; and burning noble ladies almost\nwithout trial; Sprenger and his compeers, offering up female hecatombs of\nthe highest blood thoughout Germany; English bishops burning in\nSmithfield Anne Askew, the hapless court-beauty, and her fellow-courtier\nMr. Lascelles, just as if they had been Essex or Berkshire peasants;--all\nthese evildoers were welding the different classes of the European\nnations, by a community of suffering, into nations; into the belief that\nfree and slave had one blood, one humanity, one conscience, one capacity\nof suffering; and at last, one capacity of rebelling, and making common\ncause, high and low alike, against him who reigned in Italy under the\n'Romani nominis umbram.'\n\nAnd if our English law, our English ideas of justice and mercy, have\nretained, more than most European codes, the freedom, the truthfulness,\nthe kindliness, of the old Teutonic laws, we owe it to the fact, that\nEngland escaped, more than any other land, the taint of effete Roman\ncivilization; that she therefore first of the lands, in the 12th century,\nrebelled against, and first of them, in the 16th century, threw off, the\nUltramontane yoke.\n\nAnd surely it will be so, in due time, with the descendants of these very\nLombards.  We have seen them in these very years arise out of the dust\nand shame of centuries, and determine to be Lombards once again.  We have\nseen a hero arise among them of the true old Teuton stamp, bearing\nworthily the name which his forefathers brought over the Alps with\nAlboin--Garibald, the 'bold in war.'  May they succeed in the same noble\nstruggle as that in which we succeeded, and returning, not in letter, but\nin spirit, to the old laws of Rothar and their free forefathers, become\nthe leading race of a free and united Italy!\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE XI--THE POPES AND THE LOMBARDS\n\n\n'Our Lady the Mother of God, even Virgin Maria, together with us,\nprotests to you, adjuring you with great obligations, and admonishes and\ncommands you, and with her the thrones, dominations, all the heavenly\nangels, the martyrs and confessors of Christ, on behalf of the Roman\ncity, committed to us by the Lord God, and the sheep of the Lord dwelling\nin it.  Defend and free it speedily from the hands of the persecuting\nLombards, lest my body which suffered torments for Christ, and my home in\nwhich it rests by the command of God, be contaminated by the people of\nthe Lombards, who are guilty of such iniquitous perjury, and are proud\ntransgressors of the divine scripture.  So will I at the day of judgment\nreward you with my patronage, and prepare for you in the kingdom of God\nmost shining and glorious tabernacles, promising you the reward of\neternal retribution, and the infinite joys of paradise.\n\n'Run, by the true and living God I exhort you, run, and help; before the\nliving fountain, whence you were consecrated and born again, shall dry\nup: before the little spark remaining of that brilliant flame, from which\nyou knew the light, be extinguished; before your spiritual mother, the\nholy Church of God, in which you hope to receive eternal life, shall be\nhumiliated, invaded, violated, and defiled by the impious.\n\n'But if not, may your provinces in return, and your possessions, be\ninvaded by people whom you know not.  Separate not yourselves from my\nRoman people; so you will not be aliens, and separate from the kingdom of\nGod, and eternal life.  For whatever you shall ask of me, I will surely\ngive you, and be your patron.  Assist my Roman people, your brothers; and\nstrive more perfectly; for it is written, No man receiveth the crown,\nunless he strive lawfully.\n\n'I conjure you, most beloved, by the living God, leave not this my city\nof Rome to be any longer torn by the Lombards, lest your bodies and souls\nbe torn and tormented for ever, in inextinguishable and Tartarian fire\nwith the devil and his pestiferous angels; and let not the sheep of the\nLord's flock, which are the Roman people, be dispersed any more, lest the\nLord disperse you, and cast you forth as the people of Israel was\ndispersed.'\n\nYou will conclude, doubtless, that this curious document can be nothing\nbut a papal allocution.  Its peculiar scriptural style (wrongly supposed\nto have been invented by the Puritans, who merely learnt it from the old\nRoman clergy), as well as the self-conceit, which fancies the fate of the\nwhole world to depend on the prosperity of a small half-ruined city in\nItaly, will be to you sufficient marks of the Roman hand.  But you will\nbe somewhat mistaken.  It is hardly an epistle from the successor of St.\nPeter.  It professes to be an epistle from St. Peter himself, and sent by\nhim through the hands of Pope Stephen III. to Pepin the king of the\nFranks, in the year 755.  You will have concluded also from it, that\nCatholic Christianity is in its extreme agony; that the worship and name\nof our Lord, and the fountains of sacramental grace are about to be\nextinguished for ever, and that nothing but heresy or heathendom can\nfollow.  Then you will be quite mistaken.  These Lombards are pious\nCatholics.  Builders of churches and monasteries, they are taking up the\nrelics of the Roman martyrs, to transfer them to the churches of Milan\nand Pavia.  They have just given Pope Stephen the most striking proof of\ntheir awe of his person and office.  But they are quarrelling with him\nabout the boundaries of his estates for the patrimony of St. Peter.  They\nconsider that he and his predecessors have grossly wronged them at\ndifferent times; and now last of all, by calling in foreign invaders; and\nthey are at the gates of Rome laying waste the country, and demanding a\npoll-tax as ransom.  That is all.\n\nThe causes which led to this quarrel must be sought far back in history.\nThe original documents in which you will find the facts will be Paulus\nDiaconus, as far as King Luitprand's death; then the Life and Writings of\nGregory the Great; and then Baronius' Annals, especially his quotations\nfrom Anastasius' Life of Stephen III., bearing in mind that, as with the\nOstrogoths, we have only the Roman Papal story; that the Lombards have\nnever stated their case, not even through Paulus Diaconus, who, being a\nclergyman, prudently holds his tongue about the whole matter.  But by far\nthe best account is to be found in Dean Milman's 'Latin Christianity,'\nVols.  I. and II.  Rome, you must understand, has become gradually the\npatrimony of St. Peter; the Popes are the practical kings of Rome,\npossessing, in the name of the Church, much land round Rome, and many\nestates scattered throughout Italy, and even in Sicily, Gaul, Africa, and\nthe East--estates probably bequeathed by pious people.  They have\nsucceeded to this jurisdiction simply by default.  They rule Rome,\nbecause there is no one else to rule it.  We find St. Gregory the Great\nfeeding the pauper-masses of Rome, on the first day of every month, from\nthe fruitful corn-bearing estates in Sicily; keeping up the 'Panem;' but\nsubstituting, thank Heaven, for the 'Circenses' at least the services of\nthe Church.  Of course, the man who could keep the Roman people alive\nmust needs become, ipso facto, their monarch.\n\nThe Pope acknowledges, of course, a certain allegiance to the Emperor at\nConstantinople, and therefore to his representative, the Exarch of\nRavenna: that is to say, he meets them with flattery when they are\nworking on his side; with wrath when they oppose him.  He intrigues with\nthem, too, whenever he can safely do so, against the Lombards.\n\nThus the Pope has become, during the four centuries which followed the\ndestruction of the Western Empire, the sole surviving representative of\nthat Empire.  He is the head of the 'gens togata;' of the 'Senatus\nPopulusque Romanus.'  In him Rome has risen again out of her grave, to\nawe the peoples once more by the Romani nominis umbra; and to found a new\nEmpire; not as before, on physical force, and the awe of visible power;\nbut on the deeper and more enduring ground of spiritual force, and the\nawe of the invisible world.\n\nAn Empire, I say.  The Popes were becoming, from the 5th to the 8th\ncenturies, not merely the lords of Rome, but the lords of the Western\nChurch.  Their spiritual Empire, to do them justice, was not so much\ndeliberately sought by them, as thrust upon them.  As the clergy were,\nall over the Empire, the representatives of the down-trodden Romans, so\nthey naturally gravitated toward the Eternal City, their ancient\nmistress.  Like all disciplined and organized bodies they felt the need\nof unity, of monarchy.  Where could they find it, save at Rome?  Rome was\nstill, practically and in fact, the fountain of their doctrine, of their\nsuperior civilization; and to submit themselves to the Pope of Rome was\ntheir only means of keeping up one faith, one practice, and the strength\nwhich comes from union.\n\nTo seat the Pope upon the throne of the Caesars; to attribute to him\npowers weightier than all which the Caesars had possest . . . It was a\nmagnificent idea.  A politic idea, too; for it would cover the priesthood\nwith all the prestige of ancient Rome, and enable them to face the\nbarbarian in the name of that great people whose very memory still awed\nhim; whose baths, aqueducts, palaces, he looked on as the work of demons;\nwhose sages and poets were to him enchanters; whose very gems, dug out of\nthe ruins by night, in fear and trembling, possest magic influence for\nhealing, for preservation, for good fortune in peace or war.\n\nPolitic; and in their eyes, true.  Easy enough to be believed honestly,\nby men who already believed honestly in their own divine mission.  They\nwere the representatives of Christ on earth.  Of that fact there could be\nthen, or can be now, no doubt whatsoever.  Whatsoever truth, light,\nrighteousness, there was in the West, came to it through them.  And\nChrist was the King of kings.  But He delayed his coming: at moments, He\nseemed to have deserted the earth, and left mankind to tear itself in\npieces, with wild war and misrule.  But it could not be so.  If Christ\nwere absent, He must at least have left an authority behind Him to occupy\ntill He came; a head and ruler for his opprest and distracted Church.  And\nwho could that be, if not the Pope of Rome?\n\nIt ought to be so.--It must be so--thought they.  And to men in that\nmood, proofs that it was so soon came to hand, and accumulated from\ngeneration to generation; till the Pope at last found himself\nproclaiming, and what was more, believing, that God had given the whole\nworld to St. Peter, and through St. Peter to him; and that he was the\nonly source of power, law, kingship, who could set up and pull down whom\nhe would, as the vicegerent of God on earth.\n\nSuch pretensions, of course, grew but slowly.  It was not, I believe,\ntill the year 875, 180 years after the time of which I am speaking, that\nPope John VIII. distinctly asserted his right, as representative of the\nancient Roman Empire, to create the Caesar; and informed the Synod of\nPavia that he had 'elected and approved Charles the Bald, with the\nconsent of his brothers the bishops, of the other ministers of the Holy\nRoman Church, and' (significant, though empty words) 'of the Roman senate\nand people.'\n\nAt the time of which I speak, the power was still in embryo, growing,\nthrough many struggles: but growing surely and strongly, and destined\nspeedily to avenge the fall of Rome on the simple barbarians who were\ntearing each other to pieces over her spoils.\n\nIt is not easy to explain the lasting and hereditary hatred of the Popes\nto the Lombards.  Its origin is simple enough: but not so its\ncontinuance.  Why they should be nefandissimi in the eyes of Pope Gregory\nthe Great one sees: but why 100 years afterwards, they should be still\nnefandissimi, and 'non dicenda gens Langobardorum,' not to be called a\nnation, is puzzling.\n\nAt first, of course, the Pope could only look on them as a fresh horde of\nbarbarous conquerors; half heathen, half Arian.  Their virtuous and loyal\nlife within the boundaries of Alboin's conquests--of which Paulus\nDiaconus says, that violence and treachery were unknown--that no one\noppressed, no one plundered--that the traveller went where he would in\nperfect safety--all this would be hid from the Pope by the plain fact,\nthat they were continually enlarging their frontier toward Rome; that\nthey had founded two half-independent Dukedoms of Beneventum and Spoleto,\nthat Autharis had swept over South Italy, and ridden his horse into the\nsea at Reggio, to strike with his lance a column in the waves, and cry,\n'Here ends the Lombard kingdom.'\n\nThe Pope (Gregory the Great I am speaking of) could only recollect,\nagain, that during the lawless interregnum before Autharis' coronation,\nthe independent Lombard dukes had plundered churches and monasteries,\nslain the clergy, and destroyed the people, who had 'grown up again like\ncorn.'\n\nBut as years rolled on, these Arian Lombards had become good Catholics;\nand that in the lifetime of Gregory the Great.\n\nTheodelinda, the Bavarian princess, she to whom Autharis had gone in\ndisguise to her father's court, and only confessed himself at his\ndeparture, by rising in his stirrups, and burying his battle-axe in a\ntree stem with the cry, 'Thus smites Autharis the Lombard,'--this\nTheodelinda, I say, had married after his death Agilwulf his cousin, and\nmade him king of the Lombards.\n\nShe was a Catholic; and through her Gregory the Great converted Autharis,\nand the Lombard nation.  To her he addressed those famous dialogues of\nhis, full alike of true piety and earnestness, and of childish\nsuperstition.  But in judging them and him we must bear in mind, that\nthese Lombards became at least by his means Catholics, and that Arians\nwould have believed in the superstitions just as much as Catholics.  And\nit is surely better to believe a great truth, plus certain mistakes which\ndo not affect it in the least, than a great lie, plus the very same\nmistakes likewise.  Which is best, to believe that the road to London\nlies through Bishopstortford, and that there are dog-headed men on the\nroad: or that it lies through Edinburgh, but that there are dog-headed\nmen on that road too?\n\nTheodelinda had built at Modicaea, twelve miles above Milan, a fair\nbasilica to John the Baptist, enriched by her and the Lombard kings and\ndukes, 'crowns, crosses, golden tables adorned with emeralds, hyacinths,\namber, carbuncles and pearls, gold and silver altar-cloths, and that\nadmirable cup of sapphire,' all which remained till the eighteenth\ncentury.  There, too, was the famous iron crown of Lombardy, which\nAustria still claims as her own; so called from a thin ring of iron\ninserted in it, made from a nail of the true cross which Gregory had sent\nAgilwulf; just as he sent Childebert, the Frankish king, some filings of\nSt. Peter's chains; which however, he says, did not always allow their\nsacred selves to be filed.\n\nIn return, Agilwulf had restored the church-property which he had\nplundered, had reinstated the bishops; and why did not all go well?  Why\nare these Lombards still the most wicked of men?\n\nAgain, in the beginning of the eighth century came the days of the good\nLuitprand, 'wise and pious, a lover of peace, and mighty in war; merciful\nto offenders, chaste and modest, instant in prayer, bountiful in alms,\nequal to the philosophers, though he knew no letters, a nourisher of his\npeople, an augmenter of the laws.'  He it was, who, when he had\nquarrelled with Pope Gregory II., and marched on Rome, was stopped at the\nGates of the Vatican by the Pontiff's prayers and threats.  And a sacred\nawe fell on him; and humbly entering St. Peter's, he worshipped there,\nand laid on the Apostle's tomb his royal arms, his silver cross and crown\nof gold, and withdrawing his army, went home again in peace.  But why\nwere this great king's good deeds towards the Pope and the Catholic faith\nrewarded, by what we can only call detestable intrigue and treachery?\n\nAgain; Leo the Iconoclast Emperor destroyed the holy images in the East,\nand sent commands to the Exarch of Ravenna to destroy them in western\nItaly.  Pope Gregory II. replied by renouncing allegiance to the Emperor\nof Constantinople; and by two famous letters which are still preserved;\nin which he tells the Iconoclast Emperor, that, 'if he went round the\ngrammar-schools at Rome, the children would throw their horn-books at his\nhead . . . that he implored Christ to send the Emperor a devil, for the\ndestruction of his body and the salvation of his soul . . . that if he\nattempted to destroy the images in Rome, the pontiff would take refuge\nwith the Lombards, and then he might as well chase the wind that the\nPopes were the mediators of peace between East and West, and that the\neyes of the nations were fixed on the Pope's humility, and adored as a\nGod on earth the apostle St. Peter.  And that the pious Barbarians,\nkindled into rage, thirsted to avenge the persecution of the East.'  Then\nLuitprand took up the cause of the Pope and his images, and of the mob,\nwho were furious at the loss of their idols; and marched on Ravenna,\nwhich opened her gates to him, so that he became master of the whole\nPentapolis; and image-worship, to which some plainspoken people give a\nharsher name, was saved for ever and a day in Italy.  Why did Gregory II.\nin return, call in Orso, the first Venetian Doge, to expel from Ravenna\nthe very Luitprand who had fought his battles for him, and to restore\nthat Exarchate of Ravenna, of which it was confessed, that its civil\nquarrels, misrule, and extortions, made it the most miserable government\nin Italy?  And why did he enter into secret negotiations with the Franks\nto come and invade Italy?\n\nAgain, when Luitprand wanted to reduce the duchies of Beneventum and\nSpoleto, which he considered as rebels against him, their feudal\nsuzerain; why did the next Pope, Gregory III., again send over the Alps\nto Charles Martel to come and invade Italy, and deliver the Church and\nChrist's people from ruin?\n\nAnd who were these Franks, the ancestors of that magnificent, but\nprofligate aristocracy whose destruction our grandfathers beheld in 1793?\nI have purposely abstained from describing them, till they appear upon\nthe stage of Italy, and take part in her fortunes--which were then the\nfortunes of the world.\n\nThey appear first on the Roman frontier in A.D. 241, and from that time\nare never at rest till they have conquered the north of Gaul.  They are\nsupposed (with reason) not to have been a race or tribe at all; but a\nconfederation of warriors, who were simply 'Franken,' 'free;' 'free\ncompanions,' or 'free lances,' as they would have been called a few\ncenturies later; who recruited themselves from any and every tribe who\nwould join them in war and plunder.  If this was the case; if they had\nthrown away, as adventurers, much of the old Teutonic respect for law,\nfor the royal races, for family life, for the sacred bonds of kindred,\nmany of their peculiarities are explained.  Falsehood, brutality,\nlawlessness, ignorance, and cruelty to the conquered Romans, were their\nspecial sins; while their special, and indeed only virtue, was that\nindomitable daring which they transmitted to their descendants for so\nmany hundred years.  The buccaneers of the young world, they were\ninsensible to all influences save that of superstition.  They had become,\nunder Clovis, orthodox Christians: but their conversion, to judge from\nthe notorious facts of history, worked little improvement on their\nmorals.  The pages of Gregory of Tours are comparable, for dreary\nmonotony of horrors, only to those of Johnson's History of the Pyrates.\n\nBut, as M. Sismondi well remarks, their very ignorance and brutality made\nthem the more easily the tools of the Roman clergy: 'Cette haute\nveneration pour l'Eglise, et leur severe orthodoxie, d'autant plus facile\na conserver que, ne faisant aucune etude, et ne disputant jamais sur la\nfoi, ils ne connaissaient pas meme les questions controversees, leur\ndonnerent dans le clerge de puissants auxiliaires.  Les Francs se\nmontrerent disposes a hair les Ariens, a les combattres, et les\ndepouiller sans les entendre; les eveques, en retour, ne se montrerent\npas scrupuleux sur le reste des enseignements moraux de la religion: ils\nfermerent les yeux sur les violences, le meurtre, le dereglement des\nmoeurs; ils autoriserent en quelque sorte publiquement la poligamie, et\nils precherent le droit divin des rois et le devoir le l'obeissance pour\nles peuples {279}.'\n\nA painful picture of the alliance: but, I fear, too true.\n\nThe history of these Franks you must read for yourselves.  You will find\nit well told in the pages of Sismondi, and in Mr. Perry's excellent book,\n'The Franks.'  It suffices now to say, that in the days of Luitprand\nthese Franks, after centuries of confusion and bloodshed, have been\nunited into one great nation, stretching from the Rhine to the Loire and\nthe sea, and encroaching continually to the southward and eastward.  The\ngovernment has long passed out of the hands of their faineant Meerwing\nkings into that of the semi-hereditary Majores Domus, or Mayors of the\nPalace; and Charles Martel, perhaps the greatest of that race of great\nmen, has just made himself mayor of Austrasia (the real Teutonic centre\nof Frank life and power), Neustria and Burgundy.  He has crushed Eudo,\nthe duke of Romanized Aquitaine, and has finally delivered France and\nChristendom from the invading Saracens.  On his Franks, and on the\nLombards of Italy, rest, for the moment, the destinies of Europe.\n\nFor meanwhile another portent has appeared, this time out of the far\nEast.  Another swarm of destroyers has swept over the earth.  The wild\nArabs of the desert, awakening into sudden life and civilization under\nthe influence of a new creed, have overwhelmed the whole East, the whole\nnorth of Africa, destroying the last relics of Roman and Greek\ncivilization, and with them the effete and semi-idolatrous Christianity\nof the Empire.  All the work of Narses and Belisarius is undone.  Arab\nEmirs rule in the old kingdom of the Vandals.  The new human deluge has\ncrossed the Straits into Europe.  The Visigoths, enervated by the\nluxurious climate of Spain, have recoiled before the Mussulman invaders.\nRoderick, the last king of the Goths, is wandering as an unknown penitent\nin expiation of his sin against the fair Cava, which brought down (so\nlegends and ballads tell) the scourge of God upon the hapless land; and\nthe remnants of the old Visigoths and Sueves are crushed together into\nthe mountain fastnesses of Asturias and Gallicia, thence to reissue,\nafter long centuries, as the noble Spanish nation, wrought in the forges\nof adversity into the likeness of tempered steel; and destined to\nreconquer, foot by foot, their native land from the Moslem invader.\n\nBut at present the Crescent was master of the Cross; and beyond the\nPyrenees all was slavery and 'miscreance.'  The Arabs, invading France in\n732, in countless thousands, had been driven back at the great fight of\nTours, with a slaughter so great, that the excited imagination of Paulus\nDiaconus sees 375,000 miscreants dead upon the field, while only 1500\nFranks had perished.  But home troubles had prevented 'the Hammer of the\nMoors' from following up his victory.  The Saracens had returned in force\nin 737, and again in 739.  They still held Narbonne.  The danger was\nimminent.  There was no reason why they should not attempt a third\ninvasion.  Why should they not spread along the shores of the\nMediterranean, establishing themselves there, as they were already doing\nin Sicily, and menacing Rome from north as well as south?  To unite,\ntherefore, the two great Catholic Teutonic powers, the Frank and the\nLombard, for the defence of Christendom, should have been the policy of\nhim who called himself the Chief Pontiff in Christendom.  Yet the Pope\npreferred, in the face of that great danger, to set the Teutonic nations\non destroying each other, rather than to unite them against the Moslem.\n\nThe bribe offered to the Frank was significant--the title of Roman\nConsul; beside which he was to have filings of St. Peter's chains, and\nthe key of his tomb, to preserve him body and soul from all evil.\n\nCharles would not come.  Frank though he was, he was too honourable to\nmarch at a priest's bidding against Luitprand, his old brother in arms,\nto whom he had sent the boy Pepin, his son, that Luitprand might take him\non his knee, and cut his long royal hair, and become his father-in-arms,\nafter the good old Teuton fashion; Luitprand, who with his Lombards had\nhelped him to save Christendom a second time from the Mussulman in 737.\nThe Pope, one would think, should have remembered that good deed of the\ngood Lombard's whereof his epitaph sings,\n\n         'Deinceps tremuere feroces\n   Usque Saraceni, quos dispulit impiger, ipsos\n   Cum premerent Gallos, Karolo poscente juvari.'\n\nSo Charles Martel took the title of Patrician from the Pope, but sent him\nno armies; and the quarrel went on; while Charles filled up the measure\nof his iniquity by meddling with that church-property in Gaul which his\nsword had saved from the hordes of the Saracens; and is now, as St.\nEucherius (or Bishop Hincmar) saw in a vision, writhing therefore in the\nlowest abyss of hell.\n\nSo one generation more passes by; and then Pepin le Bref, grown to\nmanhood, is less scrupulous than his father.  He is bound to the Pope by\ngratitude.  The Pope has confirmed him as king, allowing him to depose\nthe royal house of the Merovingians, and so assumed the right of making\nkings.--A right which future popes will not forget.\n\nMeanwhile the Pope has persuaded the Lombard king Rachis to go into a\nmonastery.  Astulf seizes the crown, and attacks Ravenna.  The Pope\nsucceeding, Stephen III., opposes him; and he marches on Rome,\nthreatening to assault it, unless the citizens redeem their lives by a\npoll-tax.\n\nStephen determines to go himself to Pepin to ask for help: and so awful\nhas the name and person of a Pope become, that he is allowed to do it;\nallowed to pass safely and unarmed through the very land upon which he is\ngoing to let loose all the horrors of invading warfare.\n\nIt is a strange, and instructive figure, that.  The dread of the unseen,\nthe fear of spiritual power, has fallen on the wild Teutons; on Frank and\non Lombard alike.  The Pope and his clergy are to them magicians, against\nwhom neither sword nor lance avails; who can heal the sick and blast the\nsound; who can call to their aid out of the clouds that pantheon of demi-\ngods, with which, under the name of saints, they have peopled heaven; who\ncan let loose on them the legions of fiends who dwell in every cave,\nevery forest, every ruin, every cloud; who can, by the sentence of\nexcommunication, destroy both body and soul in hell.  They were very loth\nto fear God, these wild Teutons; therefore they had instead, as all men\nhave who will not fear God, to fear the devil.\n\nSo Pope Stephen goes to Pepin, the eldest son of the Church.  He promises\nto come with all his Franks.  Stephen's conscience seems to have been\ntouched: he tries to have no fighting, only negotiation: but it is too\nlate now.  Astolf will hear of no terms; Pepin sweeps over the Alps, and\nat the gates of Pavia dictates his own terms to the Lombards.  The old\nLombard spirit seems to have past away.\n\nPepin goes back again, and Astolf refuses to fulfil his promises.  The\nPope sends Pepin that letter from St. Peter himself with which this\nlecture commenced.\n\nAstolf has marched down, as we heard, to the walls of Rome, laying the\nland waste; cutting down the vines, carrying off consecrated vessels,\ninsulting the sacrament of the altar.  The Lombards have violated nuns;\nand tried to kill them, the Pope says; though, if they had really tried,\none cannot see why they should not have succeeded.  In fact, Pope\nStephen's hysterical orations to Pepin must be received with extreme\ncaution.  No Catholic historian of that age cares to examine the truth of\na fact which makes for him; nothing is too bad to say of an enemy: and\nreally the man who would forge a letter from St. Peter might dare to tell\na few lesser falsehoods into the bargain.  Pepin cannot but obey so\naugust a summons; and again he is in Italy, and the Lombards dare not\nresist him.  He seizes not only all that Astolf had taken from the Pope,\nbut the Pentapolis and Exarchate, the property, if of any one, of the\nGreek Emperors, and bestows them on Stephen, the Pope, and 'the holy\nRoman Republic.'\n\nThe pope's commissioners received the keys of the towns, which were\nplaced upon the altar of St. Peter; and this, the Dotation of Pepin, the\nDotation of the Exarchate, was the first legal temporal sovereignty of\nthe Popes:--born in sin, and conceived in iniquity, as you may see.\n\nThe Lombard rule now broke up rapidly.  The Lombards of Spoleto yielded\nto the double pressure of Franks and Romans, asked to be 'taken into the\nservice of St. Peter,' and clipt their long German locks after the Roman\nfashion.\n\nCharlemagne, in his final invasion, had little left to do.  He confirmed\nPepin's gift, and even, though he hardly kept his promise, enlarged it to\ninclude the whole of Italy, from Lombardy to the frontier of Naples,\nwhile he himself became king of Lombardy, and won the iron crown.\n\nAnd so by French armies--not for the last time--was the Pope propt up on\nhis ill-gotten throne.\n\nBut the mere support of French armies was not enough to seat the Pope\nsecurely upon the throne of the western Caesars.  Documentary evidence\nwas required to prove that they possessed Rome, not as the vassals of the\nFrankish Kaisers, or of any barbarian Teutons whatsoever; but in their\nown right, as hereditary sovereigns of Rome.  And the documents, when\nneeded, were forthcoming.  Under the name of St. Isidore, some ready\nscribe produced the too-famous 'Decretals,' and the 'Donation of\nConstantine,' and Pope Adrian I. saw no reason against publishing them to\nCharlemagne and to the world.\n\nIt was discovered suddenly, by means of these remarkable documents, that\nConstantine the Great had been healed of leprosy, and afterwards\nbaptized, by Pope Sylvester; that he had, in gratitude for his cure,\nresigned to the Popes his western throne, and the patrimony of St. Peter,\nand the sovereignty of Italy and the West; and that this was the true\nreason of his having founded Constantinople, as a new seat of government\nfor the remnant of his empire.\n\nThis astounding falsehood was, of course, accepted humbly by the\nunlettered Teutons; and did its work well, for centuries to come.  It is\nsaid--I trust not truly--to be still enrolled among the decrees of the\nCanon law, though reprobated by all enlightened Roman Catholics.  Be that\nas it may, on the strength of this document the Popes began to assume an\nall but despotic sovereignty over the western world, and--the Teutonic\npeoples, and Rome's conquest of her conquerors was at last complete.\n\nWhat then were the causes of the Papal hatred of a race who were good and\ndevout Catholics for the last 200 years of their rule?\n\nThere were deep political reasons (in the strictest, and I am afraid\nlowest sense of the word); but over and above them there were evidently\nmoral reasons, which lay even deeper still.\n\nA free, plain-spoken, practical race like these Lombards; living by their\nown laws; disbelieving in witchcraft; and seemingly doing little for\nmonasticism, were not likely to find favour in the eyes of popes.  They\nwere not the material which the Papacy could mould into the Neapolitan\nideal of 'Little saints,--and little asses.'  These Lombards were not a\nsuperstitious race; they did not, like the Franks and Anglo-Saxons, crowd\ninto monasteries.  I can only find four instances of Lombard sovereigns\nfounding monasteries in all Paulus' history.  One of them, strangely\nenough, is that of the very Astulf against whom the Pope fulminated so\nloudly the letter from St. Peter which I read you.\n\nMoreover, it must be said in all fairness--the Lombards despised the\nRomans exceedingly.  So did all the Teutons.  'We Lombards,' says Bishop\nLuitprand, 'Saxons, Franks, Lorrainers, Bavarians, Sueves, Burgunds,\nconsider it a sufficient insult to call our enemy a Roman; comprehending\nin that one name of Roman, whatever is ignoble, cowardly, avaricious,\nluxurious, false, in a word, every vice.'  If this was--as it very\nprobably was--the feeling of the whole Teutonic race; and if it was\nrepaid--as it certainly was--on the part of the Roman, by contempt for\nthe 'barbarism' and 'ignorance' of the Teuton; what must have been the\nfeeling between Roman and Lombard?  Contact must have embittered mutual\ncontempt into an utter and internecine hatred, in which the Pope, as\nrepresentative of the Roman people, could not but share.\n\nAs for the political reasons, they are clear enough.  It is absurd to say\nthat they wished to free Italy from Lombard tyrants.  What did they do\nbut hand her over to Frankish tyrants instead?  No.  The true reason was\nthis.  Gradually there had arisen in the mind of all Popes, from Gregory\nthe Great onward, the idea of a spiritual supremacy, independent of all\nkings of the earth.  It was a great idea, as the event proved: it was a\nbeneficent one for Europe; but a ruinous one for Italy.  For the Popes\nwere not content with spiritual power.  They could not conceive of it as\nseparated from temporal power, and temporal power meant land.  How early\nthey set their hearts on the Exarchate of Ravenna, we shall never know:\nthe fact is patent, that it was a Naboth's vineyard to them; and that to\nobtain it they called in the Franks.\n\nTheir dread was, evidently, lest the Lombards should become masters of\nthe whole of Italy.  A united Italy suited their views then, no more than\nit does now.  Not only did they conceive of Rome as still the centre of\nthe western world, but more, their stock in trade was at Rome.  The\nchains of St. Peter, the sepulchres of St. Peter and St. Paul, the\ncatacombs filled with the bones of innumerable martyrs;--these were their\nstock in trade.  By giving these, selling these, working miracles with\nthese, calling pilgrims from all parts of Christendom to visit these in\nsitu, they kept up their power and their wealth.  I do not accuse them of\nmisusing that power and that wealth in those days.  They used them, on\nthe contrary, better than power and wealth had been ever used in the\nworld before.  But they were dependent on the sanctity attached to a\nparticular spot; and any power, which, like the Lombard, tended to give\nItaly another centre than Rome, they dreaded and disliked.  That Lombard\nbasilica, near Milan, with all its treasures, must have been in their\neyes, a formidable rival.  Still more frightful must it have been to them\nto see Astulf, when he encamped before the walls of Rome, searching for\nmartyrs' relics, and carrying them off to Milan.  That, as a fact, seems\nto have been the exciting cause of Stephen's journey to Pepin.  This\nAstulf was a good Catholic.  He founded a nunnery, and put his own\ndaughters in it.  What could a man do more meritorious in the eyes of the\nPope?  But he took away the lands of the Church, and worse, the relics,\nthe reserved capital by which the Church purchased lands.  This was\nindeed a crime only to be expiated by the horrors of a Frank invasion.\n\nOn the same principle the Popes supported the Exarchs of Ravenna, and the\nindependent duchies of Spoleto and Beneventum.  Well or ill ruled,\nIconoclast or not, they were necessary to keep Italy divided and weak.\nAnd having obtained what they wanted from Pepin and Charlemagne, it was\nstill their interest to pursue the same policy; to compound for their own\nindependence, as they did with Charlemagne and his successors, by\ndefending the pretences of foreign kings to the sovereignty of the rest\nof Italy.  This has been their policy for centuries.  It is their policy\nstill; and that policy has been the curse of Italy.  This fatal gift of\nthe patrimony of St. Peter--as Dante saw--as Machiavelli saw,--as all\nclear-sighted Italians have seen,--as we are seeing it now in these very\ndays--has kept her divided, torn by civil wars, conquered and reconquered\nby foreign invaders.  Unable, as a celibate ecclesiastic, to form his\ndominions into a strong hereditary kingdom; unable, as the hierophant of\na priestly caste, to unite his people in the bonds of national life;\nunable, as Borgia tried to do, to conquer the rest of Italy for himself;\nand form it into a kingdom large enough to have weight in the balance of\npower; the Pope has been forced, again and again, to keep himself on his\nthrone by intriguing with foreign princes, and calling in foreign arms;\nand the bane of Italy, from the time of Stephen III. to that of Pius IX.,\nhas been the temporal power of the Pope.\n\nBut on the popes, also, the Nemesis came.  In building their power on the\nRoman relics, on the fable that Rome was the patrimony of Peter, they had\nbuilt on a lie; and that lie avenged itself.\n\nHad they been independent of the locality of Rome; had they been really\nspiritual emperors, by becoming cosmopolitan, journeying, it may be, from\nnation to nation in regular progresses, then their power might have been\nas boundless as they ever desired it should be.  Having committed\nthemselves to the false position of being petty kings of a petty kingdom,\nthey had to endure continual treachery and tyranny from their foreign\nallies; to see not merely Italy, but Rome itself insulted, and even\nsacked, by faithful Catholics; and to become more and more, as the\ncenturies rolled on, the tools of those very kings whom they had wished\nto make their tools.\n\nTrue, they defended themselves long, and with astonishing skill and\ncourage.  Their sources of power were two, the moral, and the\nthaumaturgic; and they used them both: but when the former failed, the\nlatter became useless.  As long as their moral power was real; as long as\nthey and their clergy were on the whole, in spite of enormous faults, the\nbest men in Europe; so long the people believed in them, and in their\nthaumaturgic relics likewise.  But they became by no means the best men\nin Europe.  Then they began to think that after all it was more easy to\nwork the material than the moral power--easier to work the bones than to\nwork righteousness.  They were deceived.  Behold! when the righteousness\nwas gone, the bones refused to work.  People began to question the\nvirtues of the bones, and to ask, We can believe that the bones may have\nworked miracles for good men, but for bad men?  We will examine whether\nthey work any miracles at all.  And then, behold, it came out that the\nbones did not work miracles, and that possibly they were not saints'\nbones at all; and then the storm came: and the lie, as all lies do,\npunished itself.  The salt had lost its savour.  The Teutonic intellect\nappealed from its old masters to God, and to God's universe of facts, and\nemancipated itself once and for all.  They who had been the light of\nEurope, became its darkness; they who had been first, became last; a\nwarning to mankind until the end of time, that on Truth and Virtue\ndepends the only abiding strength.\n\n\n\n\nLECTURE XII--THE STRATEGY OF PROVIDENCE\n\n\nI no not know whether any of you know much of the theory of war.  I know\nvery little myself.  But something of it one is bound to know, as\nProfessor of History.  For, unfortunately, a large portion of the history\nof mankind is the history of war; and the historian, as a man who wants\nto know how things were done--as distinct from the philosopher, the man\nwho wants to know how things ought to have been done--ought to know a\nlittle of the first of human arts--the art of killing.  What little I\nknow thereof I shall employ to-day, in explaining to you the invasion of\nthe Teutons, from a so-called mechanical point of view.  I wish to shew\nyou how it was possible for so small and uncivilized a people to conquer\none so vast and so civilized; and what circumstances (which you may\nattribute to what cause you will: but I to God) enabled our race to\nconquer in the most vast and important campaign the world has ever seen.\n\nI call it a campaign rather than a war.  Though it lasted 200 years and\nmore, it seems to me (it will, I think, seem to you) if you look at the\nmaps, as but one campaign: I had almost said, one battle.  There is but\none problem to be solved; and therefore the operations of our race take a\nsort of unity.  The question is, how to take Rome, and keep it, by\ndestroying the Roman Empire.\n\nLet us consider the two combatants--their numbers, and their position.\n\nOne glance at the map will shew you which are the most numerous.  When\nyou cast your eye over the vastness of the Roman Empire from east to\nwest--Italy, Switzerland, half Austria, Turkey and Greece, Asia Minor,\nSyria, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, France, Britain--and then compare it\nwith the narrow German strip which reaches from the mouth of the Danube\nto the mouth of the Rhine, the disparity of area is enormous; ten times\nas great at least; perhaps more, if you accept, as I am inclined to do,\nthe theory of Dr. Latham, that we were always 'Markmen,' men of the\nMarches, occupying a narrow frontier between the Slavs and the Roman\nEmpire; and that Tacitus has included among Germans, from hearsay, many\ntribes of the interior of Bohemia, Prussia, and Poland, who were Slavs or\nothers; and that the numbers and area of our race has been, on Tacitus'\nauthority, greatly overrated.\n\nWhat then were the causes of the success of the Teutons?  Native courage\nand strength?\n\nThey had these: but you must recollect what I have told you, that those\nvery qualities were employed against them; that they were hired, in large\nnumbers, into the Roman armies, to fight against their own brothers.\n\nUnanimity?  Of that, alas! one can say but little.  The great Teutonic\narmy had not only to fight the Romans, but to fight each brigade the\nbrigade before it, to make them move on; and the brigade behind it\nlikewise, to prevent their marching over them; while too often two\nbrigades quarrelled like children, and destroyed each other on the spot.\n\nWhat, then, was the cause of their success?  I think a great deal of it\nmust be attributed to their admirable military position.\n\nLook at a map of Europe; putting yourself first at the point to be\nattacked--at Rome, and looking north, follow the German frontier from the\nEuxine up the Danube and down the Rhine.  It is a convex arc: but not\nnearly as long as the concave arc of the Roman frontier opposed to it.\nThe Roman frontier overlaps it to the north-west by all Britain, to the\nsouth-west by part of Turkey and the whole of Asia Minor.\n\nThat would seem to make it weak, and liable to be outflanked on either\nwing.  In reality it made it strong.\n\nBoth the German wings rested on the sea; one on the Euxine, one on the\nNorth Sea.  That in itself would not have given strength; for the Roman\nfleets were masters of the seas.  But the lands in the rear, on either\nflank, were deserts, incapable of supporting an army.  What would have\nbeen the fate of a force landed at the mouth of the Weser on the north,\nor at the mouth of the Dnieper at the west?  Starvation among wild moors,\nand bogs, and steppes, if they attempted to leave their base of\noperations on the coast.  The Romans saw this, and never tried the plan.\nTo defend the centre of their position was the safest and easiest plan.\n\nLook at this centre.  It is complicated.  The Roman position is guarded\nby the walls of Italy, the gigantic earthwork of the Alps.  To storm\nthem, is impossible.  But right and left of them, the German position has\ntwo remarkable points--strategic points, which decided the fate of the\nworld.\n\nThey are two salient angles, promontories of the German frontier.  The\none is north-east of Switzerland; the Allman country, between the head-\nwaters of the Danube and the Upper Rhine, Basle is its apex.  Mentz its\nnorthern point, Ratisbon its southern.  That triangle encloses the end of\nthe Schwartzwald; the Black Forest of primaeval oak.  Those oaks have\nsaved Europe.\n\nThe advantages of a salient angle of that kind, in invading an enemy's\ncountry, are manifest.  You can break out on either side, and return at\nonce into your own country on 'lines of interior operation;' while the\nenemy has to march round the angle, three feet for your one, on 'lines of\nexterior operation.'  The early German invaders saw that, and burst again\nand again into Gaul from that angle.  The Romans saw it also (admirable\nstrategists as they were) and built Hadrian's wall right across it, from\nthe Maine to the Danube, to keep them back.  And why did not Hadrian's\nwall keep them back?  On account of the Black Forest.  The Roman never\ndared to face it; to attempt to break our centre, and to save Italy by\ncarrying the war into the heart of Germany.  They knew (what the invaders\nof England will discover to their cost) that a close woodland is a more\nformidable barrier than the Alps themselves.  The Black Forest, I say,\nwas the key of our position, and saved our race.\n\nFrom this salient angle, and along the whole Rhine above it, the Western\nTeutons could throw their masses into Gaul; Franks, Vandals, Alans,\nSuevi, following each other in echellon.  You know what an echellon\nmeans?  When bodies of troops move in lines parallel to each other, but\neach somewhat in the rear of the other, so that their whole position\nresembles an echelle--a flight of steps.  This mode of attack has two\ngreat advantages.  It cannot be outflanked by the enemy; and he dare not\nconcentrate his forces on the foremost division, and beat the divisions\nin detail.  If he tries to do so, he is out-flanked himself; and he is\nliable to be beaten in detail by continually fresh bodies of troops.  Thus\nonly a part of his line is engaged at a time.  Now it was en echellon,\nfrom necessity, that the tribes moved down.  They could not follow\nimmediately in each other's track, because two armies following each\nother would not have found subsistence in the same country.  They had to\nmarch in parallel lines; those nearest to Italy moving first; and thus\nforming a vast echellon, whose advanced left rested on, and was protected\nby, the Alps.\n\nBut you must remember (and this is important) that all these western\nattacks along the Rhine and Rhone were mistakes, in as far as they were\naimed at Rome.  The Teutons were not aware, I suppose, that the Alps\nturned to the South between Gaul and Italy, and ran right down to the\nMediterranean.  There they found themselves still cut off from Rome by\nthem.  Hannibal's pass over the Mont Cenis they seem not to have known.\nThey had to range down to the Mediterranean; turn eastward along the\nGenoese coast at Nice; and then, far away from their base of operations,\nwere cut off again and again, just as the Cimbri and Teutons were cut off\nby Marius.  All attempts to take Rome from the Piedmontese entrance into\nItaly failed.  But these western attacks had immense effects.  They cut\nthe Roman position in two.\n\nAnd then came out the real weakness of that great ill-gotten Empire,\nconquered for conquering's sake.  To the north-west, the Romans had\nextended their line far beyond what they could defend.  The whole of\nNorth Gaul was taken by the Franks.  Britain was then isolated, and had\nto be given up to its fate.  South Gaul, being nearer to Italy their\nbase, they could defend, and did, like splendid soldiers as they were;\nbut that defence only injured them.  It thrust the foremost columns of\nthe enemy on into Spain.  Spain was too far from their base of operation\nto be defended, and was lost likewise, and seized by Vandals and Suevi.\nThe true point of attack was at the other salient angle of our position,\non the Roman right centre.\n\nYou know that the Danube as you ascend it lies east and west from the\nBlack Sea to Belgrade; but above the point where the Save enters it, it\nturns north almost at right angles.  This is the second salient point;\nthe real key of the whole Roman Empire.  For from this point the Germans\ncould menace--equally, Constantinople and Turkey on the right (I speak\nalways as standing at Rome and looking north), and Italy and Rome on the\nleft.  The Danube once crossed, between them and Constantinople was\nnothing but the rich rolling land of Turkey; between them and Rome\nnothing but the easy passes of the Carnic Alps, Laybach to Trieste.\nTrieste was the key of the Roman position.  It was, and always will be, a\nmost important point.  It might be the centre of a great kingdom.  The\nnation which has it ought to spend its last bullet in defending it.\n\nThe Teutons did cross the Danube, as you know, in 376, and had a great\nvictory, of which nothing came but moral force.  They waited long in\nMoesia before they found out the important step which they had made.  The\ngenius of Alaric first discovered the key of the Roman position, and\ndiscovered that it was in his own hands.\n\nI do not say that no Germans had crossed the Laybach pass before him.  On\nthe contrary, Markmen, Quadi, Vandals, seem to have come over it as early\nas 180, and appeared under the walls of Aquileia.  Of course, some one\nmust have gone first, or Alaric would not have known of it.  There were\nno maps then, at least among our race.  Their great generals had to feel\ntheir way foot by foot, trusting to hearsays of old adventurers,\ndeserters, and what not, as to whether a fruitful country or an\nimpassable alp, a great city or the world's end, was twenty miles a-head\nof them.  Yes, they had great generals among them, and Alaric, perhaps,\nthe greatest.\n\nIf you consider Alaric's campaigns, from A.D. 400 to A.D. 415, you will\nsee that the eye of a genius planned them.  He wanted Rome, as all\nTeutons did.  He was close to Italy, in the angle of which I just spoke;\nbut instead of going hither, he resolved to go south, and destroy Greece,\nand he did it.  Thereby, if you will consider, he cut the Roman Empire in\ntwo.  He paralysed and destroyed the right wing of its forces, which\nmight, if he had marched straight for Italy, have come up from Greece and\nTurkey, to take him in flank and rear.  He prevented their doing that; he\nprevented also their succouring Italy by sea by the same destruction.  And\nthen he was free to move on Rome, knowing that he leaves no strong place\non his left flank, save Constantinople itself; and that the Ostrogoths,\nand other tribes left behind, would mask it for him.  Then he moved into\nItaly over the Carnic Alps, and was repulsed the first time at Pollentia.\nHe was not disheartened; he retired upon Hungary, waited five years,\ntried it again, and succeeded, after a campaign of two years.\n\nYes.  He was a great general.  To be able to move vast masses of men\nsafely through a hostile country and in face of an enemy's army (beside\nwomen and children) requires an amount of talent bestowed on few.  Alaric\ncould do it.  Dietrich the Ostrogoth could do it.  Alboin the Lombard\ncould do it, though not under such fearful disadvantages.  There were\ngenerals before Marlborough or Napoleon.\n\nAnd do not fancy that the work was easy; that the Romans were degenerate\nenough to be an easy prey.  Alaric had been certainly beaten out of\nItaly, even though the victory of Pollentia was exaggerated.  And in 405,\nRadagast with 200,000 men had tried to take Rome by Alaric's route, and\nhad simply, from want of generalship, been forced to capitulate under the\nwalls of Florence, and the remnant of his army sold for slaves.\n\nWhy was Alaric more fortunate?  Because he was a great genius.  And why\nwhen he died, did the Goths lose all plan, and wander wildly up Italy,\nand out into Spain?  Because the great genius was gone.  Native Teuton\ncourage could ensure no permanent success against Roman discipline and\nstrategy, unless guided by men like Alaric or Dietrich.\n\nYou might fancy the campaign over now: but it was not.  Along the country\nof the Danube, from the Euxine to the Alps, the Teutons had still the\nadvantage of interior lines, and vast bodies of men--Herules, Gepids,\nOstrogoths, Lombards--were coming down in an enormous echellon similar to\nthat which forced the Rhine; to force Italy at the same fatal\npoint--Venetia.  The party who could command the last reserve would win,\nas is the rule.  And the last reserves were with our race.  They must\nwin.  But not yet.  They had, in the mean time, taken up a concave line;\na great arc running round the whole west of the Mediterranean from Italy,\nFrance, Spain, Algeria, as far as Carthage.  They could not move forces\nround that length of coast, as fast as the Romans could move them by sea;\nand they had no fleets.  Although they had conquered the Western Empire,\nthey were in a very dangerous position, and were about to be very nearly\nruined.\n\nFor you see, the Romans in turn had changed front at more than a right\nangle.  They lay at first north-west and south-east.  They lay in\nJustinian's time, north and south.  Their right was Constantinople; their\nleft Pentapolis; between those two points they held Greece, Asia Minor,\nSyria and Egypt; a position of wealth incalculable.  Meanwhile, as we\nmust remember always, they were masters of the sea, and therefore of the\ninterior lines of operation.  They had been forced into this position;\nbut, like Romans, they had accepted it.  With the boundless common sense\nof the race (however fallen, debauched, pedantic), they worked it out,\nand with terrible effect.\n\nTheir right in Constantinople was so strong that they cared nothing for\nit, though it was the only exposed point.  They would defend it by hiring\nthe Barbarians, and when they could not pay them, setting them on to kill\ndown each other; while they quietly drew into Constantinople the\nboundless crops of Asia, Syria and Egypt.\n\nThe strength of Constantinople was infinite--commanding two seas and two\ncontinents.  It is, as the genius of Constantinople saw--as the genius of\nthe Czar Nicholas saw--the strongest spot, perhaps, in the world.  That\nfact was what enabled Justinian's Empire to arise again, and enabled\nBelisarius and Narses to reconquer Africa and Italy.  Remember that, and\nsee how strong the Romans were still.\n\nThe Teutons meanwhile had changed their front, by conquering the Western\nMediterranean, and were becoming weak, because scattered on exterior\nlines, to their extreme danger.\n\nI cannot exaggerate the danger of that position.  It enabled the Romans\nby rapid movements of their fleets, to reconquer Africa and Italy.  It\nmight have enabled them to do much more.\n\nBelisarius, with great wisdom, began by attacking the Vandals at Carthage\non the extreme right.  They had put themselves into an isolated position,\nand were destroyed without help.  Then he moved on Italy and the\nOstrogoths.  He was going to force the positions in detail, and drive\nthem back behind the Alps.  What he did not finish, Narses did; and the\nTeutons were actually driven back behind the Alps for some years.\n\nBut Narses had to stop at Italy.  Even if not recalled, he could have\ngone no further.  The next move should have been on Spain, if he had\nreally had strength in Italy.  But to attack Spain from Constantinople,\nwould have been to go too far from home.  The Franks would have crost the\nPyrenees, and fallen on his flank.  The Visigoths, even if beaten, would\nhave been only pushed across the Straits of Gibraltar, to reconquer the\nVandal coast of Africa; while to take troops from Italy for any such\npurpose, would have been to let in the Lombards--who came, let in or not.\nThere were reserves in Germany still, of which Narses knew full well; for\nhe had seen 5000 Lombards, besides Herules, and Huns, and Avars, fight\nfor him at Nuceria, and destroy the Ostrogoths; and he knew well that\nthey could, if they chose, fight against him.\n\nOn the other hand, the Roman Empire had no reserves; while the campaign\nhad just come to that point at which he who can bring up the last reserve\nwins.  Ours were so far from being exhausted, that the heaviest of them,\nthe Franks, came into action, stronger than ever, 200 years after.\n\nBut the Roman reserves were gone.  If Greece, if Asia Minor, if Egypt,\nhad been the holds of a hardy people, the Romans might have done\nstill--Heaven alone knows what.  At least, they might have extended their\nfront once more to the line of Carthage, Sicily, Italy.\n\nBut the people of Syria and Egypt, were--what they were.  No recruits, as\nfar as I know, were drawn from them.  Had they been, they would have been\nface to face with a Frank, or a Lombard, or a Visigoth, much what--not a\nSikh, a Rohilla, or a Ghoorka, but a Bengalee proper--would be face to\nface with an Englishman.  One thousand Varangers might have walked from\nConstantinople to Alexandria without fighting a pitched battle, if they\nhad had only Greeks and Syrians to face.\n\nThus the Romans were growing weak.  If we had lost, so had they.  Every\nwild Teuton who came down to perish, had destroyed a Roman, or more than\none, before he died.  Each column which the admirable skill and courage\nof the Romans had destroyed, had weakened them as much, perhaps more,\nthan its destruction weakened the Teutons; and had, by harrying the\ncountry, destroyed the Roman's power of obtaining supplies.  Italy and\nTurkey at last became too poor to be a fighting ground at all.\n\nBut now comes in one of the strangest new elements in this strange\nepic--Mohammed and his Arabs.\n\nSuddenly, these Arab tribes, under the excitement of the new Mussulman\ncreed, burst forth of the unknown East.  They take the Eastern Empire in\nthe rear; by such a rear attack as the world never saw before or since;\nthey cut it in two; devour it up: and save Europe thereby.\n\nThat may seem a strange speech.  I must explain it.  I have told you how\nthe Eastern Empire and its military position was immensely strong; that\nConstantinople was a great maritime base of operations, mistress of the\nMediterranean.  What prevented the Romans from reconquering all the\nshores of that sea, and establishing themselves in strength in the Morea,\nor in Sicily, or in Carthage, or in any central base of operations?  What\nforced them to cling to Constantinople, and fight a losing campaign\nthenceforth.  Simply this; the Mussulman had forced their position from\nthe rear, and deprived them of Syria, Egypt, Africa.\n\nBut the Teutons could not have opposed them.  During the 7th century the\nLombards in Italy were lazy and divided; the Goths in Spain lazier and\nmore divided still; the Franks were tearing themselves in pieces by civil\nwar.  The years from A.D. 550 to A.D. 750 and the rise of the\nCarlovingian dynasty, were a period of exhaustion for our race, such as\nfollows on great victories, and the consequent slaughter and collapse.\n\nThis was the critical period of the Teutonic race; little talked of,\nbecause little known: but very perilous.  Nevertheless, whatever the\nEastern Empire might have done, the Saracens prevented its doing; and if\nyou hold (with me) that the welfare of the Teutonic race is the welfare\nof the world; then, meaning nothing less, the Saracen invasion, by\ncrippling the Eastern Empire, saved Europe and our race.\n\nAnd now, gentlemen, was this vast campaign fought without a general?  If\nTrafalgar could not be won without the mind of a Nelson, or Waterloo\nwithout the mind of a Wellington, was there no one mind to lead those\ninnumerable armies, on whose success depended the future of the whole\nhuman race?  Did no one marshal them in that impregnable convex front,\nfrom the Euxine to the North Sea?  No one guide them to the two great\nstrategic centres, of the Black Forest and Trieste?  No one cause them,\nblind barbarians without maps or science, to follow those rules of war,\nwithout which victory in a protracted struggle is impossible; and by the\npressure of the Huns behind, force on their flagging myriads to an\nenterprise which their simplicity fancied at first beyond the powers of\nmortal men?  Believe it who will: but I cannot.  I may be told that they\ngravitated into their places, as stones and mud do.  Be it so.  They\nobeyed natural laws of course, as all things do on earth, when they\nobeyed the laws of war: those too are natural laws, explicable on simple\nmathematical principles.  But while I believe that not a stone or a\nhandful of mud gravitates into its place without the will of God; that it\nwas ordained, ages since, into what particular spot each grain of gold\nshould be washed down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man\nmight find it at a certain moment and crisis of his life;--if I be\nsuperstitious enough (as thank God I am) to hold that creed, shall I not\nbelieve that though this great war had no general upon earth, it may have\nhad a general in Heaven? and that in spite of all their sins, the hosts\nof our forefathers were the hosts of God?\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX: THE LIMITS OF EXACT SCIENCE AS APPLIED TO HISTORY.\n\n\nIt is with a feeling of awe, I had almost said of fear, that I find\nmyself in this place, upon this errand.  The responsibility of a teacher\nof History in Cambridge is in itself very heavy: but doubly heavy in the\ncase of one who sees among his audience many men as fit, it may be some\nmore fit, to fill this Chair: and again, more heavy still, when one\nsucceeds to a man whose learning, like his virtues, one can never hope to\nequal.\n\nBut a Professor, I trust, is like other men, capable of improvement; and\nthe great law, 'docendo disces,' may be fulfilled in him, as in other\nmen.  Meanwhile, I can only promise that such small powers as I possess\nwill be honestly devoted to this Professorate; and that I shall endeavour\nto teach Modern History after a method which shall give satisfaction to\nthe Rulers of this University.\n\nI shall do that best, I believe, by keeping in mind the lessons which I,\nin common with thousands more, have learnt from my wise and good\npredecessor.  I do not mean merely patience in research, and accuracy in\nfact.  They are required of all men: and they may be learnt from many\nmen.  But what Sir James Stephen's life and writings should especially\nteach us, is the beauty and the value of charity; of that large-hearted\nhumanity, which sympathizes with all noble, generous, earnest thought and\nendeavour, in whatsoever shape they may have appeared; a charity which,\nwithout weakly or lazily confounding the eternal laws of right and wrong,\ncan make allowances for human frailty; can separate the good from the\nevil in men and in theories; can understand, and can forgive, because it\nloves.  Who can read Sir James Stephen's works without feeling more\nkindly toward many a man, and many a form of thought, against which he\nhas been more or less prejudiced; without a more genial view of human\nnature, a more hopeful view of human destiny, a more full belief in the\ngreat saying, that 'Wisdom is justified of all her children'?  Who, too,\ncan read those works without seeing how charity enlightens the intellect,\njust as bigotry darkens it; how events, which to the theorist and the\npedant are merely monstrous and unmeaning, may explain themselves easily\nenough to the man who will put himself in his fellow-creatures' place;\nwho will give them credit for being men of like passions with himself;\nwho will see with their eyes, feel with their hearts, and take for his\nmotto, 'Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto'?\n\nI entreat gentlemen who may hereafter attend my lectures to bear in mind\nthis last saying.  If they wish to understand History, they must first\ntry to understand men and women.  For History is the history of men and\nwomen, and of nothing else; and he who knows men and women thoroughly\nwill best understand the past work of the world, and be best able to\ncarry on its work now.  The men who, in the long run, have governed the\nworld, have been those who understood the human heart; and therefore it\nis to this day the statesman who keeps the reins in his hand, and not the\nmere student.  He is a man of the world; he knows how to manage his\nfellow-men; and therefore he can get work done which the mere student (it\nmay be) has taught him ought to be done; but which the mere student, much\nless the mere trader or economist, could not get done; simply because his\nfellow-men would probably not listen to him, and certainly outwit him.  Of\ncourse, in proportion to the depth, width, soundness, of his conception\nof human nature, will be the greatness and wholesomeness of his power.  He\nmay appeal to the meanest, or to the loftiest motives.  He may be a fox\nor an eagle; a Borgia, or a Hildebrand; a Talleyrand, or a Napoleon; a\nMary Stuart, or an Elizabeth: but however base, however noble, the power\nwhich he exercises is the same in essence.  He makes History, because he\nunderstands men.  And you, if you would understand History, must\nunderstand men.\n\nIf, therefore, any of you should ask me how to study history, I should\nanswer--Take by all means biographies: wheresoever possible,\nautobiographies; and study them.  Fill your minds with live human\nfigures; men of like passions with yourselves; see how each lived and\nworked in the time and place in which God put him.  Believe me, that when\nyou have thus made a friend of the dead, and brought him to life again,\nand let him teach you to see with his eyes, and feel with his heart, you\nwill begin to understand more of his generation and his circumstances,\nthan all the mere history-books of the period would teach you.  In\nproportion as you understand the man, and only so, will you begin to\nunderstand the elements in which he worked.  And not only to understand,\nbut to remember.  Names, dates, genealogies, geographical details,\ncostumes, fashions, manners, crabbed scraps of old law, which you used,\nperhaps, to read up and forget again, because they were not rooted, but\nstuck into your brain, as pins are into a pincushion, to fall out at the\nfirst shake--all these you will remember; because they will arrange and\norganize themselves around the central human figure: just as, if you have\nstudied a portrait by some great artist, you cannot think of the face in\nit, without recollecting also the light and shadow, the tone of\ncolouring, the dress, the very details of the background, and all the\naccessories which the painter's art has grouped around; each with a\npurpose, and therefore each fixing itself duly in your mind.  Who, for\ninstance, has not found that he can learn more French history from French\nmemoirs, than even from all the truly learned and admirable histories of\nFrance which have been written of late years?  There are those, too, who\nwill say of good old Plutarch's lives (now-a-days, I think, too much\nneglected), what some great man used to say of Shakspeare and English\nhistory--that all the ancient history which they really knew, they had\ngot from Plutarch.  I am free to confess that I have learnt what little I\nknow of the middle-ages, what they were like, how they came to be what\nthey were, and how they issued in the Reformation, not so much from the\nstudy of the books about them (many and wise though they are), as from\nthe thumbing over, for years, the semi-mythical saints' lives of Surius\nand the Bollandists.\n\nWithout doubt History obeys, and always has obeyed, in the long run,\ncertain laws.  But those laws assert themselves, and are to be\ndiscovered, not in things, but in persons; in the actions of human\nbeings; and just in proportion as we understand human beings, shall we\nunderstand the laws which they have obeyed, or which have avenged\nthemselves on their disobedience.  This may seem a truism: if it be such,\nit is one which we cannot too often repeat to ourselves just now, when\nthe rapid progress of science is tempting us to look at human beings\nrather as things than as persons, and at abstractions (under the name of\nlaws) rather as persons than as things.  Discovering, to our just\ndelight, order and law all around us, in a thousand events which seemed\nto our fathers fortuitous and arbitrary, we are dazzled just now by the\nmagnificent prospect opening before us, and fall, too often, into more\nthan one serious mistake.\n\nFirst; students try to explain too often all the facts which they meet by\nthe very few laws which they know; and especially moral phaenomena by\nphysical, or at least economic laws.  There is an excuse for this last\nerror.  Much which was thought, a few centuries since, to belong to the\nspiritual world, is now found to belong to the material; and the\nphysician is consulted, where the exorcist used to be called in.  But it\nis a somewhat hasty corollary therefrom, and one not likely to find\nfavour in this University, that moral laws and spiritual agencies have\nnothing at all to do with the history of the human race.  We shall not be\ninclined here, I trust, to explain (as some one tried to do lately) the\nCrusades by a hypothesis of over-stocked labour-markets on the Continent.\n\nNeither, again, shall we be inclined to class those same Crusades among\n'popular delusions,' and mere outbursts of folly and madness.  This is a\nvery easy, and I am sorry to say, a very common method of disposing of\nfacts which will not fit into the theory, too common of late, that need\nand greed have been always, and always ought to be, the chief motives of\nmankind.  Need and greed, heaven knows, are powerful enough: but I think\nthat he who has something nobler in himself than need and greed, will\nhave eyes to discern something nobler than them, in the most fantastic\nsuperstitions, in the most ferocious outbursts, of the most untutored\nmasses.  Thank God, that those who preach the opposite doctrine belie it\nso often by a happy inconsistency; that he who declares self-interest to\nbe the mainspring of the world, can live a life of virtuous\nself-sacrifice; that he who denies, with Spinoza, the existence of free-\nwill, can disprove his own theory, by willing, like Spinoza, amid all the\ntemptations of the world, to live a life worthy of a Roman Stoic; and\nthat he who represents men as the puppets of material circumstance, and\nwho therefore has no logical right either to praise virtue, or to blame\nvice, can shew, by a healthy admiration of the former, a healthy scorn of\nthe latter, how little his heart has been corrupted by the eidola specus,\nthe phantoms of the study, which have oppressed his brain.  But though\nmen are often, thank heaven, better than their doctrines, yet the\ngoodness of the man does not make his doctrine good; and it is immoral as\nwell as unphilosophical to call a thing hard names simply because it\ncannot be fitted into our theory of the universe.  Immoral, because all\nharsh and hasty wholesale judgments are immoral; unphilosophical, because\nthe only philosophical method of looking at the strangest of phaenomena\nis to believe that it too is the result of law, perhaps a healthy result;\nthat it is not to be condemned as a product of disease before it is\nproven to be such; and that if it be a product of disease, disease has\nits laws, as much as health; and is a subject, not for cursing, but for\ninduction; so that (to return to my example) if every man who ever took\npart in the Crusades were proved to have been simply mad, our sole\nbusiness would be to discover why he went mad upon that special matter,\nand at that special time.  And to do that, we must begin by recollecting\nthat in every man who went forth to the Crusades, or to any other strange\nadventure of humanity, was a whole human heart and brain, of like\nstrength and weakness, like hopes, like temptations, with our own; and\nfind out what may have driven him mad, by considering what would have\ndriven us mad in his place.\n\nMay I be permitted to enlarge somewhat on this topic?  There is, as you\nare aware, a demand just now for philosophies of History.  The general\nspread of Inductive Science has awakened this appetite; the admirable\ncontemporary French historians have quickened it by feeding it; till, the\nmore order and sequence we find in the facts of the past, the more we\nwish to find.  So it should be (or why was man created a rational being?)\nand so it is; and the requirements of the more educated are becoming so\nperemptory, that many thinking men would be ready to say (I should be\nsorry to endorse their opinion), that if History is not studied according\nto exact scientific method, it need not be studied at all.\n\nA very able anonymous writer has lately expressed this general tendency\nof modern thought in language so clear and forcible that I must beg leave\nto quote it:--\n\n'Step by step,' he says, 'the notion of evolution by law is transforming\nthe whole field of our knowledge and opinion.  It is not one order of\nconception which comes under its influence: but it is the whole sphere of\nour ideas, and with them the whole system of our action and conduct.  Not\nthe physical world alone is now the domain of inductive science, but the\nmoral, the intellectual, and the spiritual are being added to its empire.\nTwo co-ordinate ideas pervade the vision of every thinker, physicist or\nmoralist, philosopher or priest.  In the physical and the moral world, in\nthe natural and the human, are ever seen two forces--invariable rule, and\ncontinual advance; law and action; order and progress; these two powers\nworking harmoniously together, and the result, inevitable sequence,\norderly movement, irresistible growth.  In the physical world indeed,\norder is most prominent to our eyes; in the moral world it is progress,\nbut both exist as truly in the one as in the other.  In the scale of\nnature, as we rise from the inorganic to the organic, the idea of change\nbecomes even more distinct; just as when we rise through the gradations\nof the moral world, the idea of order becomes more difficult to grasp.  It\nwas the last task of the astronomer to show eternal change even in the\ngrand order of our Solar System.  It is the crown of philosophy to see\nimmutable law even in the complex action of human life.  In the latter,\nindeed, it is but the first germs which are clear.  No rational thinker\nhopes to discover more than some few primary actions of law, and some\napproximative theory of growth.  Much is dark and contradictory.  Numerous\ntheories differing in method and degree are offered; nor do we decide\nbetween them.  We insist now only upon this, that the principle of\ndevelopment in the moral, as in the physical, has been definitely\nadmitted; and something like a conception of one grand analogy through\nthe whole sphere of knowledge, has almost become a part of popular\nopinion.  Most men shrink from any broad statement of the principle,\nthough all in some special instances adopt it.  It surrounds every idea\nof our life, and is diffused in every branch of study.  The press, the\nplatform, the lecture-room, and the pulpit ring with it in every variety\nof form.  Unconscious pedants are proving it.  It flashes on the\nstatistician through his registers; it guides the hand of simple\nphilanthropy; it is obeyed by the instinct of the statesman.  There is\nnot an act of our public life which does not acknowledge it.  No man\ndenies that there are certain, and even practical laws of political\neconomy.  They are nothing but laws of society.  The conferences of\nsocial reformers, the congresses for international statistics and for\nsocial science bear witness of its force.  Everywhere we hear of the\ndevelopment of the constitution, of public law, of public opinion, of\ninstitutions, of forms of society, of theories of history.  In a word,\nwhatever views of history may be inculcated on the Universities by\nnovelists or epigrammatists, it is certain that the best intellects and\nspirits of our day are labouring to see more of that invariable order,\nand of that principle of growth in the life of human societies and of the\ngreat society of mankind which nearly all men, more or less, acknowledge,\nand partially and unconsciously confirm.'\n\nThis passage expresses admirably, I think, the tendencies of modern\nthought for good and evil.\n\nFor good.  For surely it is good, and a thing to thank God for, that men\nshould be more and more expecting order, searching for order, welcoming\norder.  But for evil also.  For young sciences, like young men, have\ntheir time of wonder, hope, imagination, and of passion too, and haste,\nand bigotry.  Dazzled, and that pardonably, by the beauty of the few laws\nthey may have discovered, they are too apt to erect them into gods, and\nto explain by them all matters in heaven and earth; and apt, too, as I\nthink this author does, to patch them where they are weakest, by that\nmost dangerous succedaneum of vague and grand epithets, which very often\ncontain, each of them, an assumption far more important than the law to\nwhich they are tacked.\n\nSuch surely are the words which so often occur in this\npassage--'Invariable, continual, immutable, inevitable, irresistible.'\nThere is an ambiguity in these words, which may lead--which I believe\ndoes lead--to most unphilosophical conclusions.  They are used very much\nas synonyms; not merely in this passage, but in the mouths of men.  Are\nyou aware that those who carelessly do so, blink the whole of the world-\nold arguments between necessity and free-will?  Whatever may be the\nrights of that quarrel, they are certainly not to be assumed in a passing\nepithet.  But what else does the writer do, who tells us that an\ninevitable sequence, an irresistible growth, exists in the moral as well\nas in the physical world; and then says, as a seemingly identical\nstatement, that it is the crown of philosophy to see immutable law, even\nin the complex action of human life?\n\nThe crown of philosophy?  Doubtless it is so.  But not a crown, I should\nhave thought, which has been reserved as the special glory of these\nlatter days.  Very early, at least in the known history of mankind, did\nPhilosophy (under the humble names of Religion and Common Sense) see most\nimmutable, and even eternal, laws, in the complex action of human life,\neven the laws of right and wrong; and called them The Everlasting\nJudgments of God, to which a confused and hard-worked man was to look;\nand take comfort, for all would be well at last.  By fair induction (as I\nbelieve) did man discover, more or less clearly, those eternal laws: by\nrepeated verifications of them in every age, man has been rising, and\nwill yet rise, to clearer insight into their essence, their limits, their\npractical results.  And if it be these, the old laws of right and wrong,\nwhich this author and his school call invariable and immutable, we shall,\nI trust, most heartily agree with them; only wondering why a moral\ngovernment of the world seems to them so very recent a discovery.\n\nBut we shall not agree with them, I trust, when they represent these\ninvariable and immutable laws as resulting in any inevitable sequence, or\nirresistible growth.  We shall not deny a sequence--Reason forbids that;\nor again, a growth--Experience forbids that: but we shall be puzzled to\nsee why a law, because it is immutable itself, should produce inevitable\nresults; and if they quote the facts of material nature against us, we\nshall be ready to meet them on that very ground, and ask:--You say that\nas the laws of matter are inevitable, so probably are the laws of human\nlife?  Be it so: but in what sense are the laws of matter inevitable?\nPotentially, or actually?  Even in the seemingly most uniform and\nuniversal law, where do we find the inevitable or the irresistible?  Is\nthere not in nature a perpetual competition of law against law, force\nagainst force, producing the most endless and unexpected variety of\nresults?  Cannot each law be interfered with at any moment by some other\nlaw, so that the first law, though it may struggle for the mastery, shall\nbe for an indefinite time utterly defeated?  The law of gravity is\nimmutable enough: but do all stones inevitably fall to the ground?\nCertainly not, if I choose to catch one, and keep it in my hand.  It\nremains there by laws; and the law of gravity is there too, making it\nfeel heavy in my hand: but it has not fallen to the ground, and will not,\ntill I let it.  So much for the inevitable action of the laws of gravity,\nas of others.  Potentially, it is immutable; but actually it can be\nconquered by other laws.\n\nI really beg your pardon for occupying you here with such truisms: but I\nmust put the students of this University in mind of them, as long as too\nmany modern thinkers shall choose to ignore them.\n\nEven if then, as it seems to me, the history of mankind depended merely\non physical laws, analogous to those which govern the rest of nature, it\nwould be a hopeless task for us to discover an inevitable sequence in\nHistory, even though we might suppose that such existed.  But as long as\nman has the mysterious power of breaking the laws of his own being, such\na sequence not only cannot be discovered, but it cannot exist.  For man\ncan break the laws of his own being, whether physical, intellectual, or\nmoral.  He breaks them every day, and has always been breaking them.\n\nThe greater number of them he cannot obey till he knows them.  And too\nmany of them he cannot know, alas, till he has broken them; and paid the\npenalty of his ignorance.  He does not, like the brute or the vegetable,\nthrive by laws of which he is not conscious: but by laws of which he\nbecomes gradually conscious; and which he can disobey after all.  And\ntherefore it seems to me very like a juggle of words to draw analogies\nfrom the physical and irrational world, and apply them to the moral and\nrational world; and most unwise to bridge over the gulf between the two\nby such adjectives as 'irresistible' or 'inevitable,' such nouns as\n'order, sequence, law'--which must bear an utterly different meaning,\naccording as they are applied to physical beings or to moral ones.\n\nIndeed, so patent is the ambiguity, that I cannot fancy that it has\nescaped the author and his school; and am driven, by mere respect for\ntheir logical powers, to suppose that they mean no ambiguity at all; that\nthey do not conceive of irrational beings as differing from rational\nbeings, or the physical from the moral, or the body of man from his\nspirit, in kind and property; and that the immutable laws which they\nrepresent as governing human life and history have nothing at all to do\nwith those laws of right and wrong, which I intend to set forth to you,\nas the 'everlasting judgments of God.'\n\nIn which case, I fear, they must go their way; while we go ours;\nconfessing that there is an order, and there is a law, for man; and that\nif he disturb that order, or break that law in anywise, they will prove\nthemselves too strong for him, and reassert themselves, and go forward,\ngrinding him to powder if he stubbornly try to stop their way.  But we\nmust assert too, that his disobedience to them, even for a moment, has\ndisturbed the natural course of events, and broken that inevitable\nsequence, which we may find indeed, in our own imaginations, as long as\nwe sit with a book in our studies: but which vanishes the moment that we\nstep outside into practical contact with life; and, instead of talking\ncheerfully of a necessary and orderly progress, find ourselves more\ninclined to cry with the cynical man of the world:\n\n   'All the windy ways of men,\n      Are but dust that rises up;\n   And is lightly laid again.'\n\nThe usual rejoinder to this argument is to fall back upon man's weakness\nand ignorance, and to take refuge in the infinite unknown.  Man, it is\nsaid, may of course interfere a little with some of the less important\nlaws of his being: but who is he, to grapple with the more vast and\nremote ones?  Because he can prevent a pebble from falling, is he to\nsuppose that he can alter the destiny of nations, and grapple forsooth\nwith 'the eternities and the immensities,' and so forth?  The argument is\nvery powerful: but addrest rather to the imagination than the reason.  It\nis, after all, another form of the old omne ignotum pro magnifico; and we\nmay answer, I think fairly--About the eternities and immensities we know\nnothing, not having been there as yet; but it is a mere assumption to\nsuppose, without proof, that the more remote and impalpable laws are more\nvast, in the sense of being more powerful (the only sense which really\nbears upon the argument), than the laws which are palpably at work around\nus all day long; and if we are capable of interfering with almost every\nlaw of human life which we know of already, it is more philosophical to\nbelieve (till disproved by actual failure) that we can interfere with\nthose laws of our life which we may know hereafter.  Whether it will pay\nus to interfere with them, is a different question.  It is not prudent to\ninterfere with the laws of health, and it may not be with other laws,\nhereafter to be discovered.  I am only pleading that man can disobey the\nlaws of his being; that such power has always been a disturbing force in\nthe progress of the human race, which modern theories too hastily\noverlook; and that the science of history (unless the existence of the\nhuman will be denied) must belong rather to the moral sciences, than to\nthat 'positive science' which seems to me inclined to reduce all human\nphaenomena under physical laws, hastily assumed, by the old fallacy of\n[Greek text], to apply where there is no proof whatsoever that they do or\neven can apply.\n\nAs for the question of the existence of the human will--I am not here, I\nhope, to argue that.  I shall only beg leave to assume its existence, for\npractical purposes.  I may be told (though I trust not in this\nUniversity), that it is, like the undulatory theory of light, an\nunphilosophical 'hypothesis.'  Be that as it may, it is very convenient\n(and may be for a few centuries to come) to retain the said 'hypothesis,'\nas one retains the undulatory theory; and for the simple reason, that\nwith it one can explain the phaenomena tolerably; and without it cannot\nexplain them at all.\n\nA dread (half-unconscious, it may be) of this last practical result,\nseems to have crossed the mind of the author on whom I have been\ncommenting; for he confesses, honestly enough (and he writes throughout\nlike an honest man) that in human life 'no rational thinker hopes to\ndiscover more than some few primary actions of law, and some\napproximative theory of growth.'  I have higher hopes of a possible\nscience of history; because I fall back on those old moral laws, which I\nthink he wishes to ignore: but I can conceive that he will not; because\nhe cannot, on his own definitions of law and growth.  They are (if I\nunderstand him aright) to be irresistible and inevitable.  I say that\nthey are not so, even in the case of trees and stones; much more in the\nworld of man.  Facts, when he goes on to verify his theories, will leave\nhim with a very few primary actions of law, a very faint approximative\ntheory; because his theories, in plain English, will not work.  At the\nfirst step, at every step, they are stopped short by those disturbing\nforces, or at least disturbed phaenomena, which have been as yet, and\nprobably will be hereafter, attributed (as the only explanation of them)\nto the existence, for good and evil, of a human will.\n\nLet us look in detail at a few of these disturbances of anything like\ninevitable or irresistible movement.  Shall we not, at the very first\nglance, confess--I am afraid only too soon--that there always have been\nfools therein; fools of whom no man could guess, or can yet, what they\nwere going to do next or why they were going to do it?  And how, pray,\ncan we talk of the inevitable, in the face of that one miserable fact of\nhuman folly, whether of ignorance or of passion, folly still?  There may\nbe laws of folly, as there are laws of disease; and whether there are or\nnot, we may learn much wisdom from folly; we may see what the true laws\nof humanity are, by seeing the penalties which come from breaking them:\nbut as for laws which work of themselves, by an irresistible\nmovement,--how can we discover such in a past in which every law which we\nknow has been outraged again and again?  Take one of the highest\ninstances--the progress of the human intellect--I do not mean just now\nthe spread of conscious science, but of that unconscious science which we\ncall common sense.  What hope have we of laying down exact laws for its\ngrowth, in a world wherein it has been ignored, insulted, crushed, a\nthousand times, sometimes in whole nations and for whole generations, by\nthe stupidity, tyranny, greed, caprice of a single ruler; or if not so,\nyet by the mere superstition, laziness, sensuality, anarchy of the mob?\nHow, again, are we to arrive at any exact laws of the increase of\npopulation, in a race which has had, from the beginning, the abnormal and\ntruly monstrous habit of slaughtering each other, not for food--for in a\nrace of normal cannibals, the ratio of increase or decrease might easily\nbe calculated--but uselessly, from rage, hate, fanaticism, or even mere\nwantonness?  No man is less inclined than I to undervalue vital\nstatistics, and their already admirable results: but how can they help\nus, and how can we help them, in looking at such a past as that of three-\nfourths of the nations of the world?  Look--as a single instance among\ntoo many--at that most noble nation of Germany, swept and stunned, by\npeasant wars, thirty years' wars, French wars, and after each hurricane,\nblossoming up again into brave industry and brave thought, to be in its\nturn cut off by a fresh storm ere it could bear full fruit: doing\nnevertheless such work, against such fearful disadvantages, as nation\nnever did before; and proving thereby what she might have done for\nhumanity, had not she, the mother of all European life, been devoured,\ngeneration after generation, by her own unnatural children.  Nevertheless,\nshe is their mother still; and her history, as I believe, the\nroot-history of Europe: but it is hard to read--the sibylline leaves are\nso fantastically torn, the characters so blotted out by tears and blood.\n\nAnd if such be the history of not one nation only, but of the average,\nhow, I ask, are we to make calculations about such a species as man?  Many\nmodern men of science wish to draw the normal laws of human life from the\naverage of humanity: I question whether they can do so; because I do not\nbelieve the average man to be the normal man, exhibiting the normal laws:\nbut a very abnormal man, diseased and crippled, but even if their method\nwere correct, it could work in practice, only if the destinies of men\nwere always decided by majorities: and granting that the majority of men\nhave common sense, are the minority of fools to count for nothing?  Are\nthey powerless?  Have they had no influence on History?  Have they even\nbeen always a minority, and not at times a terrible majority, doing each\nthat which was right in the sight of his own eyes?  You can surely answer\nthat question for yourselves.  As far as my small knowledge of History\ngoes, I think it may be proved from facts, that any given people, down to\nthe lowest savages, has, at any period of its life, known far more than\nit has done; known quite enough to have enabled it to have got on\ncomfortably, thriven, and developed; if it had only done, what no man\ndoes, all that it knew it ought to do, and could do.  St. Paul's\nexperience of himself is true of all mankind--'The good which I would, I\ndo not; and the evil which I would not, that I do.'  The discrepancy\nbetween the amount of knowledge and the amount of work, is one of the\nmost patent and most painful facts which strikes us in the history of\nman; and one not certainly to be explained on any theory of man's\nprogress being the effect of inevitable laws, or one which gives us much\nhope of ascertaining fixed laws for that progress.\n\nAnd bear in mind, that fools are not always merely imbecile and\nobstructive; they are at times ferocious, dangerous, mad.  There is in\nhuman nature what Goethe used to call a demoniac element, defying all\nlaw, and all induction; and we can, I fear, from that one cause, as\neasily calculate the progress of the human race, as we can calculate that\nof the vines upon the slopes of AEtna, with the lava ready to boil up and\noverwhelm them at any and every moment.  Let us learn, in God's name, all\nwe can, from the short intervals of average peace and common sense: let\nus, or rather our grandchildren, get precious lessons from them for the\nnext period of sanity.  But let us not be surprised, much less\ndisheartened, if after learning a very little, some unexpected and truly\ndemoniac factor, Anabaptist war, French revolution, or other, should toss\nall our calculations to the winds, and set us to begin afresh, sadder and\nwiser men.  We may learn, doubtless, even more of the real facts of human\nnature, the real laws of human history, from these critical periods, when\nthe root-fibres of the human heart are laid bare, for good and evil, than\nfrom any smooth and respectable periods of peace and plenty: nevertheless\ntheir lessons are not statistical, but moral.\n\nBut if human folly has been a disturbing force for evil, surely human\nreason has been a disturbing force for good.  Man can not only disobey\nthe laws of his being, he can also choose between them, to an extent\nwhich science widens every day, and so become, what he was meant to be,\nan artificial being; artificial in his manufactures, habits, society,\npolity--what not?  All day long he has a free choice between even\nphysical laws, which mere things have not, and which make the laws of\nmere things inapplicable to him.  Take the simplest case.  If he falls\ninto the water, he has his choice whether he will obey the laws of\ngravity and sink, or by other laws perform the (to him) artificial\nprocess of swimming, and get ashore.  True, both would happen by law: but\nhe has his choice which law shall conquer, sink or swim.  We have yet to\nlearn why whole nations, why all mankind may not use the same prudential\npower as to which law they shall obey,--which, without breaking it, they\nshall conquer and repress, as long as seems good to them.\n\nIt is true, nature must be obeyed in order that she may he conquered: but\nthen she is to be CONQUERED.  It has been too much the fashion of late to\ntravestie that great dictum of Bacon's into a very different one, and\nsay, Nature must be obeyed because she cannot be conquered; thus\nproclaiming the impotence of science to discover anything save her own\nimpotence--a result as contrary to fact, as to Bacon's own hopes of what\nscience would do for the welfare of the human race.  For what is all\nhuman invention, but the transcending and conquering one natural law by\nanother?  What is the practical answer which all mankind has been making\nto nature and her pretensions, whenever it has progressed one step since\nthe foundation of the world: by which all discoverers have discovered,\nall teachers taught: by which all polities, kingdoms, civilizations,\narts, manufactures, have established themselves; all who have raised\nthemselves above the mob have faced the mob, and conquered the mob,\ncrucified by them first and worshipped by them afterwards: by which the\nfirst savage conquered the natural law which put wild beasts in the\nforest, by killing them; conquered the natural law which makes raw meat\nwholesome, by cooking it; conquered the natural law which made weeds grow\nat his hut door, by rooting them up, and planting corn instead; and won\nhis first spurs in the great battle of man against nature, proving\nthereby that he was a man, and not an ape?  What but this?--'Nature is\nstrong, but I am stronger.  I know her worth, but I know my own.  I trust\nher and her laws, but my trusty servant she shall be, and not my tyrant;\nand if she interfere with my ideal, even with my personal comfort, then\nNature and I will fight it out to the last gasp, and Heaven defend the\nright!'\n\nIn forgetting this, in my humble opinion, lay the error of the early, or\nlaissez faire School of Political Economy.  It was too much inclined to\nsay to men: 'You are the puppets of certain natural laws.  Your own\nfreewill and choice, if they really exist, exist merely as a dangerous\ndisease.  All you can do is to submit to the laws, and drift\nwhithersoever they may carry you, for good or evil.'  But not less\ncertainly was the same blame to be attached to the French Socialist\nSchool.  It, though based on a revolt from the Philosophie du neant,\nphilosophie de la misere, as it used to term the laissez faire School,\nyet retained the worst fallacy of its foe, namely, that man was the\ncreature of circumstances; and denied him just as much as its antagonist\nthe possession of freewill, or at least the right to use freewill on any\nlarge scale.\n\nThe laissez faire School was certainly the more logical of the two.  With\nthem, if man was the creature of circumstances, those circumstances were\nat least defined for him by external laws which he had not created: while\nthe Socialists, with Fourier at their head (as it has always seemed to\nme), fell into the extraordinary paradox of supposing that though man was\nthe creature of circumstances, he was to become happy by creating the\nvery circumstances which were afterwards to create him.  But both of them\nerred, surely, in ignoring that self-arbitrating power of man, by which\nhe can, for good or for evil, rebel against and conquer circumstance.\n\nI am not, surely, overstepping my province as Professor of History, in\nalluding to this subject.  Just notions of Political Economy are\nabsolutely necessary to just notions of History; and I should wish those\nyoung gentlemen who may attend my Lectures, to go first, were it\npossible, to my more learned brother, the Professor of Political Economy,\nand get from him not merely exact habits of thought, but a knowledge\nwhich I cannot give, and yet which they ought to possess.  For to take\nthe very lowest ground, the first fact of history is, Bouche va toujours;\nwhatever men have or have not done, they have always eaten, or tried to\neat; and the laws which regulate the supply of the first necessaries of\nlife are, after all, the first which should be learnt, and the last which\nshould be ignored.\n\nThe more modern school, however, of Political Economy while giving due\nweight to circumstance, has refused to acknowledge it as the force which\nought to determine all human life; and our greatest living political\neconomist has, in his Essay on Liberty, put in a plea unequalled since\nthe Areopagitica of Milton, for the self-determining power of the\nindividual, and for his right to use that power.\n\nBut my business is not with rights, so much as with facts; and as a fact,\nsurely, one may say, that this inventive reason of man has been, in all\nages, interfering with any thing like an inevitable sequence or orderly\nprogress of humanity.  Some of those writers, indeed, who are most\nanxious to discover an exact order, are most loud in their complaints\nthat it has been interfered with by over-legislation; and rejoice that\nmankind is returning to a healthier frame of mind, and leaving nature\nalone to her own work in her own way.  I do not altogether agree with\ntheir complaints; but of that I hope to speak in subsequent lectures.\nMeanwhile, I must ask, if (as is said) most good legislation now-a-days\nconsists in repealing old laws which ought never to have been passed; if\n(as is said) the great fault of our forefathers was that they were\ncontinually setting things wrong, by intermeddling in matters political,\neconomic, religious, which should have been let alone, to develop\nthemselves in their own way, what becomes of the inevitable laws, and the\ncontinuous progress, of the human mind?\n\nLook again at the disturbing power, not merely of the general reason of\nthe many, but of the genius of the few.  I am not sure, but that the one\nfact, that genius is occasionally present in the world, is not enough to\nprevent our ever discovering any regular sequence in human progress, past\nor future.\n\nLet me explain myself.  In addition to the infinite variety of individual\ncharacters continually born (in itself a cause of perpetual disturbance),\nman alone of all species has the faculty of producing, from time to time,\nindividuals immeasurably superior to the average in some point or other,\nwhom we call men of genius.  Like Mr. Babbage's calculating machine,\nhuman nature gives millions of orderly respectable common-place results,\nwhich any statistician can classify, and enables hasty philosophers to\nsay--It always has gone on thus; it must go on thus always; when behold,\nafter many millions of orderly results, there turns up a seemingly\ndisorderly, a certainly unexpected, result, and the law seems broken\n(being really superseded by some deeper law) for that once, and perhaps\nnever again for centuries.  Even so it is with man, and the physiological\nlaws which determine the earthly appearance of men.  Laws there are,\ndoubt it not; but they are beyond us: and let our induction be as wide as\nit may, they will baffle it; and great nature, just as we fancy we have\nfound out her secret, will smile in our faces as she brings into the\nworld a man, the like of whom we have never seen, and cannot explain,\ndefine, classify--in one word, a genius.  Such do, as a fact, become\nleaders of men into quite new and unexpected paths, and, for good or\nevil, leave their stamp upon whole generations and races.  Notorious as\nthis may be, it is just, I think, what most modern theories of human\nprogress ignore.  They take the actions and the tendencies of the average\nmany, and from them construct their scheme: a method not perhaps quite\nsafe were they dealing with plants or animals; but what if it be the very\npeculiarity of this fantastic and altogether unique creature called man,\nnot only that he develops, from time to time, these exceptional\nindividuals, but that they are the most important individuals of all?\nthat his course is decided for him not by the average many, but by the\nextraordinary few; that one Mahommed, one Luther, one Bacon, one\nNapoleon, shall change the thoughts and habits of millions?--So that\ninstead of saying that the history of mankind is the history of the\nmasses, it would be much more true to say, that the history of mankind is\nthe history of its great men; and that a true philosophy of history ought\nto declare the laws--call them physical, spiritual, biological, or what\nwe choose--by which great minds have been produced into the world, as\nnecessary results, each in his place and time.\n\nThat would be a science indeed; how far we are as yet from any such, you\nknow as well as I.  As yet, the appearance of great minds is as\ninexplicable to us as if they had dropped among us from another planet.\nWho will tell us why they have arisen when they did, and why they did\nwhat they did, and nothing else?  I do not deny that such a science is\nconceivable; because each mind, however great or strange, may be the\nresult of fixed and unerring laws of life: and it is conceivable, too,\nthat such a science may so perfectly explain the past, as to be able to\npredict the future; and tell men when a fresh genius is likely to arise\nand of what form his intellect will be.  Conceivable: but I fear only\nconceivable; if for no other reason, at least for this one.  We may grant\nsafely that the mind of Luther was the necessary result of a combination\nof natural laws.  We may go further, and grant, but by no means safely,\nthat Luther, was the creature of circumstances, that there was no self-\nmoving originality in him, but that his age made him what he was.  To\nsome modern minds these concessions remove all difficulty and mystery:\nbut not, I trust, to our minds.  For does not the very puzzle de quo\nagitur remain equally real; namely, why the average of Augustine monks,\nthe average of German men, did not, by being exposed to the same average\ncircumstances as Luther, become what Luther was?  But whether we allow\nLuther to have been a person with an originally different character from\nall others, or whether we hold him to have been the mere puppet of\noutside influences, the first step towards discovering how he became what\nhe was, will be to find out what he was.  It will be more easy, and, I am\nsorry to say, more common to settle beforehand our theory, and explain by\nit such parts of Luther as will fit it; and call those which will not fit\nit hard names.  History is often so taught, and the method is popular and\nlucrative.  But we here shall be of opinion, I am sure, that we only can\nlearn causes through their effects; we can only learn the laws which\nproduced Luther, by learning Luther himself; by analyzing his whole\ncharacter; by gauging all his powers; and that--unless the less can\ncomprehend the greater--we cannot do till we are more than Luther\nhimself.  I repeat it.  None can comprehend a man, unless he be greater\nthan that man.  He must be not merely equal to him, because none can see\nin another elements of character which he has not already seen in\nhimself: he must be greater; because to comprehend him thoroughly, he\nmust be able to judge the man's failings as well as his excellencies; to\nsee not only why he did what he did, but why he did not do more: in a\nword, he must be nearer than his object is to the ideal man.\n\nAnd if it be assumed that I am quibbling on the words 'comprehend' and\n'greater,' that the observer need be greater only potentially, and not in\nact; that all the comprehension required of him, is to have in himself\nthe germs of other men's faculties, without having developed those germs\nin life; I must still stand to my assertion.  For such a rejoinder\nignores the most mysterious element of all character, which we call\nstrength: by virtue of which, of two seemingly similar characters, while\none does nothing, the other shall do great things; while in one the germs\nof intellect and virtue remain comparatively embryonic, passive, and\nweak, in the other these same germs shall develop into manhood, action,\nsuccess.  And in what that same strength consists, not even the dramatic\nimagination of a Shakespeare could discover.  What are those\nheart-rending sonnets of his, but the confession that over and above all\nhis powers he lacked one thing, and knew not what it was, or where to\nfind it--and that was--to be strong?\n\nAnd yet he who will give us a science of great men, must begin by having\na larger heart, a keener insight, a more varying human experience, than\nShakespeare's own; while those who offer us a science of little men, and\nattempt to explain history and progress by laws drawn from the average of\nmankind, are utterly at sea the moment they come in contact with the very\nmen whose actions make the history, to whose thought the progress is due.\nAnd why?  Because (so at least I think) the new science of little men can\nbe no science at all: because the average man is not the normal man, and\nnever yet has been; because the great man is rather the normal man, as\napproaching more nearly than his fellows to the true 'norma' and standard\nof a complete human character; and therefore to pass him by as a mere\nirregular sport of nature, an accidental giant with six fingers and six\ntoes, and to turn to the mob for your theory of humanity, is (I think)\nabout as wise as to ignore the Apollo and the Theseus, and to determine\nthe proportions of the human figure from a crowd of dwarfs and cripples.\n\nNo, let us not weary ourselves with narrow theories, with hasty\ninductions, which will, a century hence, furnish mere matter for a smile.\nLet us confine ourselves, at least in the present infantile state of the\nanthropologic sciences, to facts; to ascertaining honestly and patiently\nthe thing which has been done; trusting that if we make ourselves masters\nof them, some rays of inductive light will be vouchsafed to us from Him\nwho truly comprehends mankind, and knows what is in man, because He is\nthe Son of Man; who has His own true theory of human progress, His own\nsound method of educating the human race, perfectly good, and perfectly\nwise, and at last, perfectly victorious; which nevertheless, were it\nrevealed to us to-morrow, we could not understand; for if he who would\ncomprehend Luther must be more than Luther, what must he be, who would\ncomprehend God?\n\nLook again, as a result of the disturbing force of genius, at the effects\nof great inventions--how unexpected, complex, subtle, all but\nmiraculous--throwing out alike the path of human history, and the\ncalculations of the student.  If physical discoveries produced only\nphysical or economic results--if the invention of printing had only\nproduced more books, and more knowledge--if the invention of gunpowder\nhad only caused more or less men to be killed--if the invention of the\nspinning-jenny had only produced more cotton-stuffs, more employment, and\ntherefore more human beings,--then their effects would have been, however\ncomplex, more or less subjects of exact computation.\n\nBut so strangely interwoven is the physical and spiritual history of man,\nthat material inventions produce continually the most unexpected\nspiritual results.  Printing becomes a religious agent, causes not merely\nmore books, but a Protestant Reformation; then again, through the Jesuit\nliterature, helps to a Romanist counter-reformation; and by the clashing\nof the two, is one of the great causes of the Thirty Years' War, one of\nthe most disastrous checks which European progress ever suffered.\nGunpowder, again, not content with killing men, becomes unexpectedly a\npolitical agent; 'the villanous saltpetre,' as Ariosto and Shakespeare's\nfop complain, 'does to death many a goodly gentleman,' and enables the\nmasses to cope, for the first time, with knights in armour; thus forming\na most important agent in the rise of the middle classes; while the\nspinning-jenny, not content with furnishing facts for the political\neconomist, and employment for millions, helps to extend slavery in the\nUnited States, and gives rise to moral and political questions, which may\nhave, ere they be solved, the most painful consequences to one of the\ngreatest nations on earth.\n\nSo far removed is the sequence of human history from any thing which we\ncan call irresistible or inevitable.  Did one dare to deal in epithets,\ncrooked, wayward, mysterious, incalculable, would be those which would\nrather suggest themselves to a man looking steadily not at a few facts\nhere and there, and not again at some hasty bird's-eye sketch, which he\nchooses to call a whole, but at the actual whole, fact by fact, step by\nstep, and alas! failure by failure, and crime by crime.\n\nUnderstand me, I beg.  I do not wish (Heaven forbid!) to discourage\ninductive thought; I do not wish to undervalue exact science.  I only ask\nthat the moral world, which is just as much the domain of inductive\nscience as the physical one, be not ignored; that the tremendous\ndifficulties of analyzing its phenomena be fairly faced; and the hope\ngiven up, at least for the present, of forming any exact science of\nhistory; and I wish to warn you off from the too common mistake of trying\nto explain the mysteries of the spiritual world by a few roughly defined\nphysical laws (for too much of our modern thought does little more than\nthat); and of ignoring as old fashioned, or even superstitious, those\ngreat moral laws of history, which are sanctioned by the experience of\nages.\n\nForemost among them stands a law which I must insist on, boldly and\nperpetually, if I wish (as I do wish) to follow in the footsteps of Sir\nJames Stephen: a law which man has been trying in all ages, as now, to\ndeny, or at least to ignore; though he might have seen it if he had\nwilled, working steadily in all times and nations.  And that is--that as\nthe fruit of righteousness is wealth and peace, strength and honour; the\nfruit of unrighteousness is poverty and anarchy, weakness and shame.  It\nis an ancient doctrine, and yet one ever young.  The Hebrew prophets\npreached it long ago, in words which are fulfilling themselves around us\nevery day, and which no new discoveries of science will abrogate, because\nthey express the great root-law, which disobeyed, science itself cannot\nget a hearing.\n\nFor not upon mind, gentlemen, not upon mind, but upon morals, is human\nwelfare founded.  The true subjective history of man is the history not\nof his thought, but of his conscience; the true objective history of man\nis not that of his inventions, but of his vices and his virtues.  So far\nfrom morals depending upon thought, thought, I believe, depends on\nmorals.  In proportion as a nation is righteous,--in proportion as common\njustice is done between man and man, will thought grow rapidly, securely,\ntriumphantly; will its discoveries be cheerfully accepted, and faithfully\nobeyed, to the welfare of the whole commonweal.  But where a nation is\ncorrupt, that is, where the majority of individuals in it are bad, and\njustice is not done between man and man, there thought will wither, and\nscience will be either crushed by frivolity and sensuality, or abused to\nthe ends of tyranny, ambition, profligacy, till she herself perishes,\namid the general ruin of all good things; as she had done in Greece, in\nRome, in Spain, in China, and many other lands.  Laws of economy, of\npolity, of health, of all which makes human life endurable, may be\nignored and trampled under foot, and are too often, every day, for the\nsake of present greed, of present passion; self-interest may become, and\nwill become, more and more blinded, just in proportion as it is not\nenlightened by virtue; till a nation may arrive, though, thank God, but\nseldom, at that state of frantic recklessness which Salvian describes\namong his Roman countrymen in Gaul, when, while the Franks were\nthundering at their gates, and starved and half-burnt corpses lay about\nthe unguarded streets, the remnant, like that in doomed Jerusalem of old,\nwere drinking, dicing, ravishing, robbing the orphan and the widow,\nswindling the poor man out of his plot of ground, and sending meanwhile\nto the tottering Caesar at Rome, to ask, not for armies, but for\nCircensian games.\n\nWe cannot see how science could have bettered those poor Gauls.  And we\ncan conceive, surely, a nation falling into the same madness, and crying\n'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' in the midst of railroads,\nspinning-jennies, electric telegraphs, and crystal palaces, with infinite\nblue-books and scientific treatises ready to prove to them, what they\nknew perfectly well already, that they were making a very unprofitable\ninvestment, both of money and of time.\n\nFor science indeed is great: but she is not the greatest.  She is an\ninstrument, and not a power; beneficent or deadly, according as she is\nwielded by the hand of virtue or of vice.  But her lawful mistress, the\nonly one which can use her aright, the only one under whom she can truly\ngrow, and prosper, and prove her divine descent, is Virtue, the likeness\nof Almighty God.  This, indeed, the Hebrew Prophets, who knew no science\nin one sense of the word, do not expressly say: but it is a corollary\nfrom their doctrine, which we may discover for ourselves, if we will look\nat the nations round us now, if we will look at all the nations which\nhave been.  Even Voltaire himself acknowledged that; and when he pointed\nto the Chinese as the most prosperous nation upon earth, ascribed their\nprosperity uniformly to their virtue.  We now know that he was wrong in\nfact: for we have discovered that Chinese civilization is one not of\npeace and plenty, but of anarchy and wretchedness.  But that fact only\ngoes to corroborate the belief, which (strange juxtaposition!) was common\nto Voltaire and the old Hebrew Prophets at whom he scoffed, namely, that\nvirtue is wealth, and vice is ruin.  For we have found that these\nChinese, the ruling classes of them at least, are an especially\nunrighteous people; rotting upon the rotting remnants of the wisdom and\nvirtue of their forefathers, which now live only on their lips in flowery\nmaxims about justice and mercy and truth, as a cloak for practical\nhypocrisy and villany; and we have discovered also, as a patent fact,\njust what the Hebrew Prophets would have foretold us--that the miseries\nand horrors which are now destroying the Chinese Empire, are the direct\nand organic results of the moral profligacy of its inhabitants.\n\nI know no modern nation, moreover, which illustrates so forcibly as China\nthe great historic law which the Hebrew Prophets proclaim; and that is\nthis:--That as the prosperity of a nation is the correlative of their\nmorals, so are their morals the correlative of their theology.  As a\npeople behaves, so it thrives; as it believes, so it behaves.  Such as\nhis Gods are, such will the man be; down to that lowest point which too\nmany of the Chinese seem to have reached, where, having no Gods, he\nhimself becomes no man; but (as I hear you see him at the Australian\ndiggings) abhorred for his foul crimes even by the scum of Europe.\n\nI do not say that the theology always produces the morals, any more than\nthat the morals always produce the theology.  Each is, I think,\nalternately cause and effect.  Men make the Gods in their own likeness;\nthen they copy the likeness they have set up.  But whichever be cause,\nand whichever effect, the law, I believe, stands true, that on the two\ntogether depends the physical welfare of a people.  History gives us many\nexamples, in which superstition, many again in which profligacy, have\nbeen the patent cause of a nation's deoradation.  It does not, as far as\nI am aware, give us a single case of a nation's thriving and developing\nwhen deeply infected with either of those two vices.\n\nThese, the broad and simple laws of moral retribution, we may see in\nhistory; and (I hope) something more than them; something of a general\nmethod, something of an upward progress, though any thing but an\nirresistible or inevitable one.  For I have not argued that there is no\norder, no progress--God forbid.  Were there no order to be found, what\ncould the student with a man's reason in him do, but in due time go\nmad?--Were there no progress, what could the student with a man's heart\nwithin him do, but in due time break his heart, over the sight of a chaos\nof folly and misery irredeemable?--I only argue that the order and the\nprogress of human history cannot be similar to those which govern\nirrational beings, and cannot (without extreme danger) be described by\nmetaphors (for they are nothing stronger) drawn from physical science.  If\nthere be an order, a progress, they must be moral; fit for the guidance\nof moral beings; limited by the obedience which those moral beings pay to\nwhat they know.\n\nAnd such an order, such a progress as that, I have good hope that we\nshall find in history.\n\nWe shall find, as I believe, in all the ages, God educating man;\nprotecting him till he can go alone, furnishing him with the primary\nnecessaries, teaching him, guiding him, inspiring him, as we should do to\nour children; bearing with him, and forgiving him too, again and again,\nas we should do: but teaching him withal (as we shall do if we be wise)\nin great part by his own experience, making him test for himself, even by\nfailure and pain, the truth of the laws which have been given him;\ndiscover for himself, as much as possible, fresh laws, or fresh\napplications of laws; and exercising his will and faculties, by trusting\nhim to himself wherever he can be trusted without his final destruction.\nThis is my conception of history, especially of Modern History--of\nhistory since the Revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.  I express myself\nfeebly enough, I know.  And even could I express what I mean perfectly,\nit would still be but a partial analogy, not to be pushed into details.\nAs I said just now, were the true law of human progress revealed to us to-\nmorrow, we could not understand it.\n\nFor suppose that the theory were true, which Dr. Temple of Rugby has\nlately put into such noble words: suppose that, as he says, 'The power\nwhereby the present ever gathers into itself the results of the past,\ntransforms the human race into a colossal man, whose life reaches from\nthe creation to the day of judgment.  The successive generations of men,\nare days in this man's life.  The discoveries and inventions which\ncharacterize the different epochs of the world, are this man's works.  The\ncreeds and doctrines, the opinions and principles of the successive ages,\nare his thoughts.  The state of society at different times, are his\nmanners.  He grows in knowledge, in self-control, in visible size, just\nas we do.'  Suppose all this; and suppose too, that God is educating this\nhis colossal child, as we educate our own children; it will hardly follow\nfrom thence that his education would be, as Dr. Temple says it is,\nprecisely similar to ours.\n\nAnalogous it may be, but not precisely similar; and for this reason: That\nthe collective man, in the theory, must be infinitely more complex in his\norganization than the individuals of which he is composed.  While between\nthe educator of the one and of the other, there is simply the difference\nbetween a man and God.  How much more complex then must his education be!\nhow all-inscrutable to human minds much in it!--often as inscrutable as\nwould our training of our children seem to the bird brooding over her\nyoung ones in the nest.  The parental relations in all three cases may\nbe--the Scriptures say that they are--expansions of the same great law;\nthe key to all history may be contained in those great words--'How often\nwould I have gathered thy children as a hen gathereth her chickens under\nher wings.'  Yet even there the analogy stops short--'but thou wouldest\nnot' expresses a new element, which has no place in the training of the\nnestling by the dam, though it has place in our training of our children;\neven that self-will, that power of disobedience, which is the dark side\nof man's prerogative as a rational and self-cultivating being.  Here that\nanalogy fails, as we should have expected it to do; and in a hundred\nother points it fails, or rather transcends so utterly its original type,\nthat mankind seems, at moments, the mere puppet of those laws of natural\nselection, and competition of species, of which we have heard so much of\nlate; and, to give a single instance, the seeming waste, of human\nthought, of human agony, of human power, seems but another instance of\nthat inscrutable prodigality of nature, by which, of a thousand acorns\ndropping to the ground, but one shall become the thing it can become, and\ngrow into a builder oak, the rest be craunched up by the nearest swine.\n\nYet these dark passages of human life may be only necessary elements of\nthe complex education of our race; and as much mercy under a fearful\nshape, as ours when we put the child we love under the surgeon's knife.\nAt least we may believe so; believe that they have a moral end, though\nthat end be unseen by us; and without any rash or narrow prying into\nfinal causes (a trick as fatal to historic research as Bacon said it was\nto science), we may justify God by faith, where we cannot justify Him by\nexperience.\n\nSurely this will be the philosophic method.  If we seem to ourselves to\nhave discovered a law, we do not throw it away the moment we find\nphaenomena which will not be explained by it.  We use those phaenomena to\ncorrect and to expand our law.  And this belief that History is 'God\neducating man,' is no mere hypothesis; it results from the observation of\nthousands of minds, throughout thousands of years.  It has long seemed--I\ntrust it will seem still--the best explanation of the strange deeds of\nthat strange being, man: and where we find in history facts which seem to\ncontradict it, we shall not cast away rashly or angrily either it or\nthem: but if we be Bacon's true disciples, we shall use them patiently\nand reverently to correct and expand our notions of the law itself, and\nrise thereby to more deep and just conceptions of education, of man,\nand--it may be--of God Himself.\n\nIn proportion as we look at history thus; searching for effective, rather\nthan final causes, and content to see God working everywhere, without\nimpertinently demanding of Him a reason for His deeds, we shall study in\na frame of mind equally removed from superstition on the one hand, and\nnecessitarianism on the other.  We shall not be afraid to confess natural\nagencies: but neither shall we be afraid to confess those supernatural\ncauses which underlie all existence, save God's alone.\n\nWe shall talk of more than of an over-ruling Providence.  That such\nexists, will seem to us a patent fact.  But it will seem to us somewhat\nManichaean to believe that the world is ill made, mankind a failure, and\nthat all God has to do with them, is to set them right here and there,\nwhen they go intolerably wrong.  We shall believe not merely in an over-\nruling Providence, but (if I may dare to coin a word) in an under-ruling\none, which has fixed for mankind eternal laws of life, health, growth,\nboth physical and spiritual; in an around-ruling Providence, likewise, by\nwhich circumstances, that which stands around a man, are perpetually\narranged, it may be, are fore-ordained, so that each law shall have at\nleast an opportunity of taking effect on the right person, in the right\ntime and place; and in an in-ruling Providence. too, from whose\ninspiration comes all true thought, all right feeling; from whom, we must\nbelieve, man alone of all living things known to us inherits that\nmysterious faculty of perceiving the law beneath the phaenomena, by\nvirtue of which he is a _man_.\n\nBut we can hold all this, surely, and equally hold all which natural\nscience may teach us.  Hold what natural science teaches?  We shall not\ndare not to hold it.  It will be sacred in our eyes.  All light which\nscience, political, economic, physiological, or other, can throw upon the\npast, will be welcomed by us, as coming from the Author of all light.  To\nignore it, even to receive it suspiciously and grudgingly, we shall feel\nto be a sin against Him.  We shall dread no 'inroads of materialism;'\nbecause we shall be standing upon that spiritual ground which\nunderlies--ay, causes--the material.  All discoveries of science, whether\npolitical or economic, whether laws of health or laws of climate, will be\naccepted trustfully and cheerfully.  And when we meet with such startling\nspeculations as those on the influence of climate, soil, scenery on\nnational character, which have lately excited so much controversy, we\nshall welcome them at first sight, just because they give us hope of\norder where we had seen only disorder, law where we fancied chance: we\nshall verify them patiently; correct them if they need correction; and if\nproven, believe that they have worked, and still work, [Greek text], as\nfactors in the great method of Him who has appointed to all nations their\ntimes, and the bounds of their habitation, if haply they might feel after\nHim, and find Him: though He be not far from any one of them; for in Him\nwe live, and move, and have our being, and are the offspring of God\nHimself.\n\nI thus end what it seemed to me proper to say in this, my Inaugural\nLecture; thanking you much for the patience with which you have heard me:\nand if I have in it too often spoken of myself, and my own opinions, I\ncan only answer that it is a fault which has been forced on me by my\nposition, and which will not occur again.  It seemed to me that some sort\nof statement of my belief was necessary, if only from respect to a\nUniversity from which I have been long separated, and to return to which\nis to me a high honour and a deep pleasure; and I cannot but be aware (it\nis best to be honest) that there exists a prejudice against me in the\nminds of better men than I am, on account of certain early writings of\nmine.  That prejudice, I trust, with God's help, I shall be able to\ndissipate.  At least whatever I shall fail in doing, this University will\nfind that I shall do one thing; and that is, obey the Apostolic precept,\n'Study to be quiet, and to do your own business.'\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{1}  Grimm, Grammatik, ii. p. 516.\n\n{2}  See Grimm, Grammatik, (2nd edit.) vol. i. p. 108; vol. ii. p. 581.\n\n{3}  Lectures on the Science of Language, vol. ii. p. 232.\n\n{4}  Forstemann mentions a Latin inscription of the third century found\nnear Wiesbaden with the Dative Toutiorigi.\n\n{5}  German classics, by M. M. p. 12.\n\n{6}  Anonym.  Valesian. ad calcem Ann.  Marcellin. p. 722.  Gibbon, cap.\nxxxix; now known, through Mommsen, as the Annals of Ravenna.\n\n{7}  Grimm thinks that Charle-maigne and Charlemagne were originally\ncorruptions of Karlo-man, and were interpreted later as Carolus magnus.\nGrimm, Grammatik, ii. 462; iii. 320.\n\n{8}  Weber, Lehrbuch der Weltgeschichte, section 245: 'Bei Verona von\nTheoderich (daher Dietrich von Bern) besiegt, barg sich Odoaker hinter\ndie Mauern von Ravenna.'  It is much more objectionable when Simrock in\nhis translation of the Edda renders Thjodrekr by Dietrich, though he\nretains Theodolf and similar names.  But it shows at the same time the\nwide popularity of that name.\n\n{9}  Grimm, Heldensage, p. 344.\n\n{10}  Gibbon, chap. xxxix. sub fin.\n\n{11}  Otto von Freising, in the first half of the twelfth century\n(Chronicon 5, 3), takes the opposite view, and thinks the fable derived\nfrom history: 'Ob ea non multis post diebus, xxx imperii sui anno,\nsubitanea morte rapitur ac juxta beati Gregorii dialogum (4, 36) a Joanne\net Symmacho in Aetnam praecipitatus, a quodam homine Dei cernitur.  Hinc\nputo fabulam illam traductam, qua vulgo dicitur: _Theodoricus vivus equo\nsedens ad inferos descendit_.\n\n{12}  Grimm, Deutsche Heldensage, p. 36.  Chronicon Urspergense, 85a:\nHaec Jordanis quidam grammaticus, ex eorundem stirpe Gothorum progenitus,\nde Getarum origine et Amalorum nobilitate non omnia, quae de eis\nscribuntur et referuntur, ut ipse dicit, complexus exaravit, sed brevius\npro rerum notitia huic opusculo inseruimus.  His perlectis diligenterque\nperspectis perpendat, qui discernere noverit, quomodo illud ratum\nteneatur, quod non solum _vulgarifabulatione_ et _cantilenarum\nmodulatione_ usitatur, verum etiam in _quibusdam chronicis_ annotatur;\nscilicet quod _Hermenricus_ tempore Martiani principis super omnes Gothos\nregnaverit, et _Theodoricum Dietmari filium_, _patruelem_ suum, ut\ndicunt, _instimulante Odoacre_, item, ut ajunt, _patruele suo de Verona\npulsum_, apud _Attilam Hunorum regem exulare coegerit_, cum\nhistoriographus narret, Ermenricum regem Gothorum multis regibus\ndominantem tempore Valentiniani et Valentis fratrum regnasse et a _duobus\nfratribus Saro_ et _Ammio_, quos conjicimus eos fuisse, qui _vulgariter\nSarelo et Hamidiecus_ dicuntur, vulneratum in primordio egressionis\nHunorum per Maeotidem paludem, quibus rex fuit Valamber, tam vulneris\nquam Hunorum irruptionis dolore defunctum fuisse, Attilam vero postea\nultra LXX annos sub Martiano et Valentiniano cum Romanis et Wisigothis\nAetioque duce Romanorum pugnasse et sub eisdem principibus regno vitaque\ndecessisse. . . . Hinc rerum diligens inspector perpendat, quomodo\n_Ermenricus Theodoricum Dietmari filium apud Attilam exulare coegerit_,\ncum juxta hunc historiographum contemporalis ejus non fuit.  Igitur aut\nhic falsa conscripsit, aut _vulgaris opinio fallitur_ et _fallit_, aut\nalius Ermenricus et alms Theodoricus dandi sunt Attilae contemporanei, in\nquibus hujus modi rerum convenientia rata possit haberi.  Hic enim\nErmenricus longe ante Attilam legitur defunctus.\n\n{13}  Chronicon, 5, 3: Quod autem rursum narrant, eum Hermanarico\nAttilaeque contemporaneum fuisse, omnino stare non potest, dum Attilam\nlonge post Hermanaricum constat exercuisse tyrannidem istumque post\nmortem Attilae octennem a patre obsidem Leoni Augusto traditum.\n\n{14}  Chronicon, 16, 481: Quod autem quidam dicunt, ipsum Theodoricum\nfuisse Hermenrico Veronensi et Attilae contemporaneum, non est verum.\nConstat enim Attilam longe post Hermenricum fuisse Theodoricum etiam\nlonge post mortem Attilae, quum esset puer octennis, Leoni imperatori in\nobsidem datum fuisse.\n\n{19}  The early romancers, and especially Achilles Tatius, give pictures\nof Roman praedial slavery too painful to quote.  Roman domestic slavery\nis not to be described by the pen of an Englishman.  And I must express\nmy sorrow, that in the face of such notorious facts, some have of late\ntried to prove American slavery to be as bad as, or even worse than, that\nof Rome.  God forbid!  Whatsoever may have been the sins of the Southern\ngentleman, he is at least a Teuton, and not a Roman; a whole moral heaven\nabove the effeminate wretch, who in the 4th and 5th centuries called\nhimself a senator and a clarissimus.\n\n{101}  Dr. Sheppard, p. 297.\n\n{109}  Had he actually taken the name of Theodoric, Theuderic, Dietrich,\nwhich signifies much the same thing as 'King of nations'?\n\n{158}  With west-countrymen, to 'scrattle' still means to scramble, or\nshuffle about.\n\n{162}  English Language, vol. i. p. 200.\n\n{214}  Cf. Montalembert.  'Moines d'Occident.'\n\n{279}  Sismondi _Hist. de la Chute de l'Empire Romain_, p. 187.","title":"The Roman and the Teuton: A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":97652}