old Gothic Law. But above all Sidonius likes their king--Theodoric
is his name. A man of blood he has been in his youth: but he has
settled down, like his people; and here is a picture of him. A real
photograph of a live old Goth, nearly 1400 years ago. Gibbon gives a
good translation of it. I will give you one, but Sidonius is prolix
and florid, and I have had to condense.

A middle-sized, stout man, of great breadth of chest, and thickness
of limb, a large hand, and a small foot, curly haired, bushy eye-
browed, with remarkably large eyes and eyelids, hook-nosed, thin-
lipped; brilliant, cheerful, impassioned, full of health and strength
in mind and body. He goes to chapel before day-light, sits till
eight doing justice, while the crowd, let into a latticed enclosure,
is admitted one by one behind a curtain into the presence. At eight
he leaves the throne, and goes either to count his money, or look at
his horses. If he hunts, he thinks it undignified to carry his bow,
and womanish to keep it strung, a boy carries it behind him; and when
game gets up, he asks you (or the Bishop, who seems to have gone
hunting with him) what you would wish him to aim at; strings his bow,
and then (says Sidonius) never misses his shot. He dines at noon,
quietly in general, magnificently on Saturdays; drinks very little,
and instead of sleeping after dinner, plays at tables and dice. He
is passionately fond of his game, but never loses his temper, joking
and talking to the dice, and to every one round him, throwing aside
royal severity, and bidding all be merry (says the bishop); for, to
speak my mind, what he is afraid of is, that people should be afraid
of him. If he wins he is in immense good humour; then is the time to
ask favours of him; and, says the crafty bishop, many a time have I
lost the game, and won my cause thereby. At three begins again the
toil of state. The knockers return, and those who shove them away