be doubted, that many preferred remaining in the pleasant regions of their
ancestors, to quitting them for a life of poverty and toil. These,
however, appear to have been chiefly of the lower order; [7] and the men
of higher rank, or of more generous sentiments, who refused to accept a
nominal and precarious independence at the hands of their oppressors,
escaped from the overwhelming inundation into the neighboring countries of
France, Italy, and Britain, or retreated behind those natural fortresses
of the north, the Asturian hills and the Pyrenees, whither the victorious
Saracen disdained to pursue them. [8]

Here the broken remnant of the nation endeavored to revive the forms, at
least, of the ancient government. But it may well be conceived, how
imperfect these must have been under a calamity, which, breaking up all
the artificial distinctions of society, seemed to resolve it at once into
its primitive equality. The monarch, once master of the whole Peninsula,
now beheld his empire contracted to a few barren, inhospitable rocks. The
noble, instead of the broad lands and thronged halls of his ancestors, saw
himself at best but the chief of some wandering horde, seeking a doubtful
subsistence, like himself, by rapine. The peasantry, indeed, may be said
to have gained by the exchange; and, in a situation, in which all
factitious distinctions were of less worth than individual prowess and
efficiency, they rose in political consequence. Even slavery, a sore evil
among the Visigoths, as indeed among all the barbarians of German origin,
though not effaced, lost many of its most revolting features, under the
more generous legislation of later times. [9]

A sensible and salutary influence, at the same time, was exerted on the
moral energies of the nation, which had been corrupted in the long
enjoyment of uninterrupted prosperity. Indeed, so relaxed were the morals
of the court, as well as of the clergy, and so enervated had all classes