it out of doubt, that a country which at prefent hardly feeds 36,000,000 in a high ftate of agricultural improvement, was not likely to be the abode of half that number, when it was full of moraffes and forests, and when the climate, as there is reason to think, fympathifed with the wildnefs of the foil and the rudeness of the inhabitants..

As

During the period comprised in this first volume, France, as is well known, was governed by the Merovingian dynasty, which expired about the middle of the eighth century, and gave way to Pepin, and his fon Charlemagne. There were three-and-thirty of these monarchs, great and small, without reckoning the four from Pharamond to Clovis, who, like the four first lines of the Eneid, Ille ego, have a doubtful fort of claim to authenticity, and are put on or truck off according to the fancy of the author. to their manner of life, they maintained an oriental establishment of wives and concubines, put out the eyes of their brothers and nephews when they came in their way, were very much afraid of the bishops, drove about the streets of Paris in a waggon drawn by buffaloes, trafted the management of their affairs to their Mayors of the Palace, and wore very long hair. This fingular faculty of propagating long-haired children ran in the family of Merovæus their young Highneffes were known by it, like the Ogre's children by their crowns, or Prince Cherry and Princefs Fair-ftar by combing pearls out of their locks. Like Samfon of old, their whole ftrength lay in this hair; the moment one of them was fhaved there was an end of him; not a Frank had inftinct enough to own fuch a wight for the true prince. We cannot indeed fay much for the inner lining of the skull in these fhepherds of the people. They acquired the name of infenfati, faineans, or fools. This was not a libel, a pafquinade, an impertinent fally of plebeian wit. A grave chronicler, as dry as dry -may be, relates this little circumftance in their characters as a matter of course. Poft Dagobertum, regnavit Daniel, clericus infenfatus, frater ejus; poft Chilpericum, Regem infenfatum, regnavit, folo nomine, Hendericus infenfatus, confanguineus ejus; poft Hendericum, regnavit, folo nomine, Childericus infenfatus, frater ejus. We have heard O 3

it

*The following account is given by Eginhard of thefe Merovingians. Et opes et potentia regni penes Palatii prafelos, qui majores domus dicebantur, et ad quos fumma imperii pertinebat, tenebantur; neque regi aliud relinquebatur, quam ut regio tantum nomine contentus, crine profufo, barbá fummiffu, folio refideret, et fpeciem dominantis effingeret, legatos, undecunque venientes, audiret, fque abeuntibus refponfa, que erat edoctus, vel etiam juffus, ex fuá velut poteflate, redderet. Quocunque eundum erat, carpento bat, quod bubus jundis, bubulco ruftico more agente, trahebatur.

it fuggefted by fome learned perfons, that, from the conftant conjunction of long hair and folly in these Gallic potentates, mankind have, as ufual, inferred the relation of caufe and effect to have fubfifted between them, and affuming, rather illogically, the converfe of the propofition to be true, have rivetted in their minds that affociation of wigs and wifdom which has fo greatly redounded to the glory and profit of doctors and peruke-makers.

Like the correfponding hiftory of England during the Heptarchy, the annals of thefe princes are ineffably wearifome and uninstructive. Whether the Offas and the Pendas, the Chilperics and the Dagoberts, had a vice more or lefs, we have as little folicitude to enquire, as about any question which the bufy dæmon of controverfy can poffibly fuggeft. The Sublime Porte does not trouble itself, faid the Reis Effendi to an ambaffador, who communicated a victory of his master's, whether the dog beats the hog, or the hog beats the dog. We care as little, whether in any one given year during an age of anarchy a greater number was flain in one horde of barbarians or another. These are the ups and downs of favage warfare, which are occafionally varied by the fluctus decumani, the grand revolutions, by which the fate of nations has been affected. We make no objection, on the whole, to the conduct of this part of the book. Dr R. could not have been more concife, without reducing the scale to that of an abridgment, and he has never been tedioufly diffuse. In one inftance, perhaps, we could wish him to have looked a little more into the fubject, indifferent as we have juft profeffed ourselves as to individual character. We allude to that of Brunehaut, Queen of Auftrafia and Burgundy, and rival of the no lefs notorious Fredegonde, who, in the year 613, was dragged at the tail of a vicious horfe, for the amufement of an humane conqueror and his polished camp. Concerning this princess the antiquaries and hiftorians of France have been at iffue for fome centuries, the greater part maintaining her to have been a monster of guilt, while fome efpoufe her defence with as much zeal as was felt by the three hundred gallant Franks, who fwore, that a child, of which Fredegonde had been delivered, was the actual offspring of her hufband. Dr R. fimply fays, that Velly rather vindicates her character. But Velly is by no means her only panegyrift; Pafquier, Cordernoi, and feveral more, might have been cited on the fame fide; and the controverfy, perhaps, deferved a note of half a page. Yet when we recollect, that fome great philofophers have declared, that the difpute about the guilt of our Scottish Mary, connected as it is with fo many illuftrious charac ters, heightened by fo many affociations of fentiment and romantic circumftance, and embellithed by fuch ingenuity and eloquence, has excited no curiofity in their breafts, we are half afha

med

med to avow any folicitude about the merits of this comparatively obfcure princefs.

As a fpecimen of Dr R.'s powers of compofition, we may refer to his character of Charlemagne. It is drawn, in our judgment, without force or vivacity; and is worthy of cenfure alfo in a moral fenfe, for glozing over the thirst of conqueft, and the licentious private life, by which that illuftrious ufurper of the Roman name was diftinguished. Charlemagne owed more to Pepin, than Alexander to Philip, or Charles XII. to his father: not only he inherited a confolidated empire, but found the neighbouring countries half fubdued. Like Alexander, too, his genius was attefed, not by the permanence, but by the fall of his empire: his fceptre was too maffy to be swayed by the puny hands of his children; and he ftands by himself, as the fole individual, who, within the period of credible hiftory, has united, by his own victories, three of the principal countries of Europe under his fingle dominion. There is a fact related by Dr R. of Charlemagne, which is rather ftartling. The King of Perfia, fays he, who reigned then over great part of Afia, preferred his friendship to that of any other prince or potentate, and prefented him with the precious gift of the Holy Land.' Vol. i. p. 166. In another place, (vol. ii. p. 2.), he speaks of Aaron King of Perfia. The original of this abfurd blunder we have luckily detected (for Dr R. is very deficient in his references) in Eginhard, (Vit. Kar. Mag. c. 16.). Cum Aaron Rege Perfarum, qui, exceptá Italia, totum pæne tenebat Orientem, talem habuit in amicitiâ concordiam, ut is gratiam ejus omnium, qui in orbe terrarum erant, regum et principum amicitiæ præponeret, folumque illum honore et munificentia fibi colendum judicaret. Ac proinde, cum legati ejus, quos cum donariis ad Sacratiffimum Domini ac Salvatoris Mundi fepulcrum locumq. refurrectionis miferat, ad eum venissent, et ei Domini fui voluntatem indicáffent, non folum quæ petebantur fieri permifit, fed etiam facrum illum et falutarem locum at illius poteftati afcriberetur, conceffit.' Dr R. has not only confounded the mere scite of the Holy Sepulchre with Palestine at large, which would have been a marvellous donation, but has difguifed under this ftrange appellation Aaron King of Perfia, the illustrious Khalif Haroun Alrafchid. There is fomething peculiarly interefting to our minds in the esteem and courteous intercourse between thefe great men, who, in the zenith of religious bigotry on either fide, unconnected, in the most diftant poflibility, by ambitious interefts, feparated by long tracts of fea and land, and furveying each other but in the mirror of reflected glory, ftill felt that there exifted between them the community of tranfcendent merit, and the joint inheritance of that immortal renown to which no other monarch of their time was worthy to afpire.

We shall rejoice if the extracts which, for a different reason, we have been led to make from Eginhard's life of Charlemagne, should induce any of our readers to the perufal of that work. It is written, with a few exceptions, in Latinity more worthy of the first than the ninth century, and with much of that fimplicity, grace, and brevity, which we admire in the Agefilaus of Xenophon, and the Lives of Cornelius Nepos.

The ecclefiaftical hiftory in the fecond chapter, including that of Druidifm, is fomewhat too long. The third chapter is the most effential of the whole firft volume It purports to contain the hiftory of civil government, laws, and, revenue, from Clovis to Charlemagne. This is the fruitful field of controversy. Every step we take is over the debateable land. The extent of royal authority, the hereditary or elective tenure of the crown,-the nature of the irruption under Clovis,—the condition of the former inhabitants under their new mafters, the equality or inequality of ranks, -the exemption from taxes, the partition of plunder and of lands among the Franks,-the rife of the feudal fyftem,-and the nature of the tenures which preceded it; thefe are the chief, but by no means the only questions which have occupied the researches of learned and zealous Frenchmen. But they are interesting, at least many of them, to us, almost as much as if we were Frenchmen. Their folution would illuftrate mot materially the whole hiftory of the middle ages. There is fuch an affinity among the western nations of Europe, that, whatever is true of one, though it will not admit an analogical inference, will very much affift our investigations with respect to another. Their jurisprudence, particularly, is of the fame family features, though the Frank, the Anglo-Saxon, the Lombard, and the Vifigoth, have blended the general character with thofe diftinctive peculiarities, which fituation, climate, and commixture of races muft always produce,

Thefe difcuffions, though fome of them had an earlier origin, have been particularly profecuted fince the beginning of the last century, The Jefuit Pere Daniel led the way, in the preface to his Hiftory of France, about the conclufion of Lewis XIV.'s reign. But, though far more learned than Mezerai, he does not feem to have fully anticipated all the conftitutional questions which were afterwards raised; and his moft eminent innovation in hiftorical criticifm, was the rejection of the four monarchs who were fuppoted to have preceded Clovis in a fetttlement on the left bank of the Rhine, in the country of Liege and Tongres, for whose existence, or, at leaft, for whofe eftablishment, he endeavours to how there is no ground of belief. The Count de Boulainvilliers followed, in the Memoires Hiftoriques prefixed to his Statistical Account of France, a fplendid edition of which was published

at London in 1727, under the patronage of the royal family, and the principal Whigs. For it was confidered as written upon principles, which at that time were fashionable in the English court; and inculcated the origination of government from the people, and the circumfcription of regal prerogative. The fame caufes rendered this work unpopular, or at leaft invidious in France, and the fucceeding writers feldom fpeak of Boulainvilliers without aftonishment at his audacity and prefumption.

Clovis, according to this author, was but the general of a free army, who elected him as their leader in enterprises, the glory and profit of which was to be fhared with themselves. Previously to fuch election, the Franks were equal and independent. What kings they had, were but civil magiftrates, appointed to fettle the difputes of individuals, though probably always felected from a particular family. Their leaders in war were elected indifcriminately with refpect to birth, from the public confidence in their skill and valour. Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute fumant. This diftinction was preferved throughout the whole of the first race after Clovis. The civil and military authority were in separate hands,-the King, and the Mayor of the palace. The Frank, confcious of his inherent rights, looked up to the king neither for his liberty, his poffeffions, nor his right of dominion over the ancient inhabitants. Thefe became fubject, not to the king, except in his own fhare of the conquered territory, but to the proprietors of eftates within which they lived. Thefe proprietors, the Frank conquerors at large, knew of no tax or tribute, fave perfonal fervice against a common foe; and claimed the equal diftribution of all the fpoils of victory. A precious. vafe, belonging to the church of Rheims, was taken foon after the battle of Soiffons. When the plunder was fet out for divifion, Clovis begged it for himself. You fhall have nothing here, exclaimed a foldier, ftriking the veffel with his battle axe, but what falls to your fhare by lot. Clovis diffembled his refentment, and deferred for a better pretext the punishment of this infolence. Nor was the civil power lefs limited in peace, than the military authority if war. The general affembly in the Champ de Mars retained the legislative and the judicial powers in themfelves. No Frank could be tried in any other court. And to complete his fecurity against oppreffion, the right of defending himself by arms against any power whatsoever, was both recognised and frequently exerted.

Such is the view of civil government under the first race which Boulainvilliers has given; and the fame prejudice which has raised up fwarms of zealots in England for the monarchical or the democratic nature of our Anglo-Saxon polity, led the fubjects of Lewis XV. to

confider