I.

more just than theirs; and Strabo asks where is the CHA P. wonder of this, as they cared little for money or commerce, which he considers to be the fountains of civilized dishonesty.40

THE nations who entered Europe, after the Scythic or Gothic or Teutonic tribes, have been called Sclavonian or Sarmatian, forming a third great race who have appeared on the vast Germanic continent. The Sarmatian or Sclavonic branches have occupied Russia, Poland, Eastern Prussia, Moravia, Bohemia and their vicinity. As our ancient history is not connected with this race, it will be sufficient to remark, that they had reached the neighbourhood of the Tanais on the borders of Europe, in the time of Herodotus, who calls them Sauromatæ. This fact gives one solid basis for their just chronology. Herodotus lived 450 years before our æra; and thus he gives evidence of the existence and approach to Europe of the Sarmatian race at that period.

THE Sclavonic is a genus of languages which The Sclaevery examiner would separate from the Keltic and vonic. Gothic. The present Russian is thought to be the most faithful specimen of the original Sclavonic. The Poles, the Bohemians, the Dalmatians, the Croatians, the Bulgarians, Carinthians, Moravians,

tude or even manhood, amidst all the kindnesses they receive. They seem to have no sentiments of generosity, benevolence, or goodness." See Brainerd's Life by President Edwards. He died 1747.

40 Strabo, 460, 461. 454.

41 He says the regions beyond the Tanais are no part of Scythia. The first portion belongs to the Sauromatæ, lib. iv. c. 21.

II.

BOOK and some other tribes adjacent, formerly used its various dialects.42 It prevailed in those parts of Europe where the ancients placed the Sarmatæ.4 The numerous tribes who spoke the Sclavonic preserved their ancient name of Venedi, long after their invasion of Germany, in the fifth or sixth century, though they were also called Slavi. Their successes enabled them to reach the Saxons and the Francs, but their conquests were terminated by the opposition of Charlemagne, and their incessant civil feuds.

Their

gical succession.

THE incontrovertible fact, of the existence in chronolo- ancient Europe of at least three genera of languages, strongly distinguished from each other, conducts us safely to the conclusion, that the collections of nations who spoke them, must have also differed in the chronology of their origin. As the Keltic tribes were found in the most western extremities of Europe, it is reasonable to infer that they visited it earlier than the others: so the Sclavonic peoples, being found to reside about its eastern boundaries, may be fairly considered as the latest settlers. The Gothic or Teutonic states, from their position, claim justly an intermediate date. As they advanced westwards, the Keltoi retired before

42 The extent of the nationes Slavorum, and of their language, is stated by Helmoldus, Chron. Slav. p. 3.; by Krantz in his Wandalia, p. 2.; by Chrytæus, Wandalia, p. 3.; by Munster, 1 Schard. Hist. Germ. 486.; and by Faber, Rer. Musc. 132. On the Slavi, see Spener's Notitia, ii. p. 384. Sunt a Germanis plane diversi generis. Pontanus, Chor. Dan. 710.

43 Dubravii Hist. Bohem. 44. Helmoldus, p. 3., says, that the Hungarians nec habitu nec linguâ discrepant. But Krantz disputes his authority, and affirms, that all acknowledge the Hungarian and Sclavonic to be dissimilar languages. Wandalia, 36.

I.

them. As the ramifications of the Scythians, Sax- CHAP. ons and Goths, spread toward the Germanic Ocean, the Sclavonic hordes flowed after them from Asia. The Saxon was one of the Gothic or Teutonic states, and it was as far west as the Elbe in the days of Ptolemy. The Saxons were therefore, in all likelihood, as ancient visitors of Europe as any other Gothic tribe. Their situation seems to indicate that they moved among the foremost columns of the second great emigration into Europe; but the particular date of their arrival on the Elbe, or a more particular derivation, it is impossible to prove, and therefore unprofitable to discuss.44

44 The most ancient nations of Italy and Greece, and those on the coasts of the Mediterranean, the Ægean Sea, and the Adriatic, appear to me to have sprung partly from Phoenician and Egyptian colonisations, and partly from the migrations of the Kimmerian and Keltic races. From this ancient population, secondary colonisations took place, like those which peopled Magna Græcia, and the north coast of the Euxine, and which settled at Marseilles. In their later population, the Gothic or Scythian tribes, as well as the Carthaginians, must have had some share. The most remarkable fact of the Latin language is, that although visibly of the same family with the Greek, yet it contains many striking resemblances, especially in its terminations, to the ancient Sanscrit. Meric Casaubon has taken some pains to show that the Saxon language has great affinity with the Greek. De Ling. Sax. 234-376.

II.

CHAP. II.

Description of the Country inhabited by the Saxons near the FLBE, before they occupied Britain.

CHAP. THE infant state of the Saxon people, when the Romans first observed them, exhibited nothing from which human sagacity would have predicted greatness. A territory, on the neck of the Cimbric Chersonesus, and three small islands, contained those whose descendants occupy the circle of Westphalia, the electorate of Saxony, the British islands, the United States of North America, and the British colonies in the two Indies. Such is the course of Providence, that empires the most extended, and the most formidable, are found to vanish as the morning mist; while tribes scarce visible, or contemptuously overlooked, like the springs of a mighty river, often glide on gradually to greatness and veneration.

Saxon

islands.

North

THE three islands, which the Saxons in the days of Ptolemy inhabited, were those which we now denominate North Strandt, Busen, and Heiligland.1

NORTH STRAND, formerly torn from South JutStrandf. land by the violence of the waves, is situated oppo

1 Cluver. Ant. Ger. iii. p. 97. Pontanus Chorog. 737. Du Bos Histoire Critique, i. p. 148. The geographer of Ravenna places Eustrachia among the Saxon isles, lib. v. c. 30. This may mean the neighbouring peninsula, Eyderstadt, which was almost an island.

u

II.

site to Hesum, and above Eiderstede, from both CHAP. which it is separated by intervals of sea. The Hever, a bay which flows below it, and washes the northern shore of the Eidersted, is favourable to commercial navigations. This island was formerly about twenty miles long, and in most parts seven miles broad. It once contained twenty-two parishes, and was noted for its agricultural produce, as well as its 2 fish. The raging of the sea has materially damaged it since the time of the Saxons. Four calamitous inundations are recorded to have happened, in 1300, 1483, 1532, and 1615; but the most destructive of all began in the night of the 11th October, 1634; the island was entirely overflowed; 6408 persons, 1332 houses, and 50,000 head of cattle were washed away into the 3 sea. Such devastations have almost annihilated the place. There is now remaining of Nord-strand only the small parish of Pelworm, which derives its safety from the height of its situation.

3

BUSEN lies north of the mouth of the Elbe, to Busen. the westward of Ditmarsia, and looks towards Meldorp; in breadth it is above two miles, in length near three. It is situated close upon the main land, of which it is suspected to have once formed a part. Being one even plain, the stormy ocean around makes the island a perilous habitation; it has therefore been surrounded by a strong dyke. It contains three or four parishes, with about as many villages; and though boasting no pre-emi

2 Chrytæus, 65. Pontanus, p. 741. Ubbo Emmius, p. 30.

158.

3 The destruction extended to other parts of Jutland. In the Eyderstede, 664 houses, 2107 persons, and 12,000 cattle and sheep were swept off. Busching's Geography.