done, again and again, not only between Frank and Goth, Lombard and
Gepid, but between Lombard and Lombard, Frank and Frank. Yes, they
were drunk with each other's blood, those elder brethren of ours.
Let us thank God that we did not share their booty, and perish, like
them, from the touch of the fatal Nibelungen hoard. Happy for us
Englishmen, that we were forced to seek our adventures here, in this
lonely isle; to turn aside from the great stream of Teutonic
immigration; and settle here, each man on his forest-clearing, to
till the ground in comparative peace, keeping unbroken the old
Teutonic laws, unstained the old Teutonic faith and virtue, cursed
neither with poverty nor riches, but fed with food sufficient for us.
To us, indeed, after long centuries, peace brought sloth, and sloth
foreign invaders and bitter woes: but better so, than that we should
have cast away alike our virtue and our lives, in that mad quarrel
over the fairy gold of Rome.



LECTURE II--THE DYING EMPIRE.



It is not for me to trace the rise, or even the fall of the Roman
Empire. That would be the duty rather of a professor of ancient
history, than of modern. All I need do is to sketch, as shortly as I
can, the state in which the young world found the old, when it came
in contact with it.

The Roman Empire, toward the latter part of the fourth century, was
in much the same condition as the Chinese or the Turkish Empire in