'I have taken in hand,' said Sir Francis Drake once to the crew of
the immortal Pelican, 'that which I know not how to accomplish. Yea,
it hath even bereaved me of my wits to think of it.'

And so I must say on the subject of this lecture. I wish to give you
some notion of the history of Italy for nearly one hundred years; say
from 400 to 500. But it is very difficult. How can a man draw a
picture of that which has no shape; or tell the order of absolute
disorder? It is all a horrible 'fourmillement des nations,' like the
working of an ant-heap; like the insects devouring each other in a
drop of water. Teuton tribes, Sclavonic tribes, Tartar tribes, Roman
generals, empresses, bishops, courtiers, adventurers, appear for a
moment out of the crowd, dim phantoms--nothing more, most of them--
with a name appended, and then vanish, proving their humanity only by
leaving behind them one more stain of blood.

And what became of the masses all the while? of the men, slaves the
greater part of them, if not all, who tilled the soil, and ground the
corn--for man must have eaten, then as now? We have no hint. One
trusts that God had mercy on them, if not in this world, still in the
world to come. Man, at least, had none.

Taking one's stand at Rome, and looking toward the north, what does
one see for nearly one hundred years? Wave after wave rising out of
the north, the land of night, and wonder, and the terrible unknown;
visible only as the light of Roman civilization strikes their crests,
and they dash against the Alps, and roll over through the mountain
passes, into the fertile plains below. Then at last they are seen
but too well; and you discover that the waves are living men, women,