account of his nation, and the world in general, a Lombard gentleman
and clergyman could give, at the end of the 8th century.

You recollect the Lombards, of whom Tacitus says, 'Longobardos
paucitas nobilitat.' Paulus Warnefrid was one of their descendants,
and his history carries out the exact truth of Tacitus' words. He
too speaks of them as a very small tribe. He could not foresee how
much the 'nobilitat' meant. He knew his folk as a brave semi-feudal
race, who had conquered the greater part of Italy, and tilled and
ruled it well; who were now conquered by Charlemagne, and annexed to
the great Frank Empire, but without losing anything of their
distinctive national character. He did not foresee that they would
become the architects, the merchants, the goldsmiths, the bankers,
the scientific agriculturists of all Europe. We know it. Whenever
in London or any other great city, you see a 'Lombard Street,' an old
street of goldsmiths and bankers--or the three golden balls of
Lombardy over a pawnbroker's shop--or in the country a field of rye-
grass, or a patch of lucerne--recollect this wise and noble people,
and thank the Lombards for what they have done for mankind.

Paulus is a garrulous historian, but a valuable one, just because he
is garrulous. Though he turned monk and deacon in middle life, he
has not sunk the man in the monk, and become a cosmopolite, like most
Roman ecclesiastics, who have no love or hate for human beings save
as they are friends or enemies of the pope, or their own abbey. He
has retained enough of the Lombard gentleman to be proud of his
family, his country, and the old legends of his race, which he tells,
half-ashamed, but with evident enjoyment.

He was born at beautiful Friuli, with the jagged snow-line of the