the hand of Timour. He aspired to conquer the Christian kingdoms of the west. He is said to have designed subduing Egypt and Africa; marching from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean; entering Europe by the Streights of Gibraltar; and after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning home by the eastern deserts of Russia and Tartary.* Were Alexander's plans more mighty than these of Timour, or were his exploits more brilliant or successful? In short, did there ever exist an empire more extensive, or more populous, than the modern Scythian, in the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries?

Of the northern nations our plan does not require us to take more than a general notice. Nor is it of any great moment to be particular as to their situations. About the time of Augustus, as relative to them, we can land on historic ground, At least as early as the Christian æra, and as late as the age of Antoninus, the Goths were established towards the mouth of the Vistula, and seated in Prussia. If we could yield a firm assent to the voyages of Pytheas of Marseilles, we would also allow that the Goths had passed the Baltic at least three hundred

years

Sherefeddin.

years before Christ. The Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder, and the sea coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance of manners, complexion, religion, and language, seemed to indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally one and the same people.*

Various writers, indeed, have confounded the different tribes of these nations, and have ranged all the most celebrated among them under the name of Gothi, even inclusive of the Visigothi and Ostrogothi, as if that name had been the common and national denomination of all those different tribes; whereas Vandali frequently occurs in Pliny and Tacitus, as a generic term. Certain, however, it is, that the common and national name of Vandali has been particularly appropriated to one certain people, whether consisting only of a single tribe, or of a confederacy and coalition of several tribes of the same nation. They it were, we are informed, who had a principal share in beginning the downfall, and afterwards in completing the destruction, of the Roman empire in the west. Many of them afterwards conquered, and finally settled in Africa.

Pliny. Procopius.

The

The Hunns were a fierce and warlike nation, who inhabited that part of Asiatic Sarmatia which bordered on the Palus Mæotis and the Tanais, the ancient boundary between Europe and Asia.* They went under a variety of denominations, though in general they were comprised under the name of Ugri, changed afterwards into that of Hunni, or Unni. They were of the Scythian race; their government was feudatory; they left their abodes about the year of Christ 376, and after various fortune, at length settled in Pannonia, called afterwards from them, Hungary. Their first ravages were on the Ostrogoths.

Of the manners of the Gothic tribes we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter. They were eminently brave from education, and from the influence of a martial religion; and they were always to be dreaded, from the manly obedience which they yielded to hereditary kings, and from their consequent stability and union. Their hospitality, however, and kindness to strangers, even before they embraced the Christian religion, were remarkable; nay, their character in this respect obtained for them, we are told, the name of Goths; a name, according to Grotius,

* Am. Marcell.

Grotius, and most other writers, derived from the Teutonic word goten, signifying good. They encouraged, says Dio, the study of philosophy. Their laws were, also, little inferior to those of the Romans, as appears from the Alaric code; the laws of the Visigoths in Spain, and of the Ostrogoths in Italy. * Yet it cannot be denied, that though thus honourable, thus respectable at home, they still, abroad, were dreadful ravagers. As among the Greeks, even " robbing was honoured, provided it were done with gallantry, and from a stranger nation, and was a thing for which no one ought either to be scorned or upbraided." +

The tyrants of the capitol are, from custom, treated with tenderness, while their brave and free conquerors are loaded with opprobrium. Let both have their due. What was the conduct of the first Cæsar among the Gauls? Or what shall we say to the savage mandate still extant of the emperor Gallienus, in the latter end of the third century, who, after the suppression of the rebellion of Ingenuus, who had assumed the purple, in Illyricum, thus writes to his minister. §"It is not enough, that you ex

• Universal History.
Cæsar.

terminate,

+ Thucydides.
Hist. August.

terminate such as have appeared in arms, the chance of battle might have served me as effec tually. The male sex of every age must be extirpated, provided, that in the execution of the children and old men, you can contrive means to save our reputation. Let every one die, who has dropt an expression, who has entertained a thought against me against me, the son of Valerian, the father and brother of so many princes. Remem ber that Ingenuus was made emperor: Tear, kill, hew in pieces. I write to you with my own hand, and would inspire you with my own feelings."*

T

Were the annals, or even the traditionary tales of the Teutones, or Celts, ever stained with such cool, such premeditated atrocity? In the field, and according to the prevailing system of war, many horrors were undoubtedly committed by them against their enemies. But, the unbridled rage of contest at an end, the noble strain was never forgotten. "Bend the strong in arms, but, spare the feeble hand. Be thou a stream of many tides against the foes of thy people; but, like the gale that moves the grass, to those who ask thine aid. Such a man stands great, and his battles are full of fame: but, the little soul is

like

• Gibbon.