shall see hereafter how the great Goth's work was all undone; and (to
their everlasting shame) by whom it was undone.

The most interesting records of the time are, without doubt, the
letters of Cassiodorus, the king's secretary and chancellor, which
have come down to us in great numbers. There are letters among them
on all questions of domestic and foreign policy: to the kings of the
Varni, kings of the Herules, kings of the Thuringer (who were still
heathens beyond the Black forest), calling on them all to join him
and the Burgundians, and defend his son-in-law Alaric II., king of
the Visigoths, against Clovis and his Franks. There are letters,
too, bearing on the religious feuds of the Roman population, and on
the morals and social state of Rome itself, of which I shall say
nothing in this lecture, having cause to refer to them hereafter.
But if you wish to know the times, you must read Cassiodorus
thoroughly.

In his letters you will remark how most of the so-called Roman names
are Greek. You will remark, too, as a sign of the decadence of taste
and art, that though full of wisdom and practical morality, the
letters are couched in the most wonderful bombast to be met with,
even in that age of infimae Latinitatis. One can only explain their
style by supposing that King Dietrich, having supplied the sense,
left it for Cassiodorus to shape it as he thought best; and when the
letter was read over to him, took for granted (being no scholar) that
that was the way in which Roman Caesars and other cultivated
personages ought to talk; admired his secretary's learning; and
probably laughed in his sleeve at the whole thing, thinking that ten
words of honest German would have said all that he meant. As for
understanding these flights of rhetoric, it is impossible that