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savage appearance, the suddenness of their attacks, the panic fears of those against whom they proceeded, motives of palliation when the latter were vanquished, and of vain-glory when they were victorious,-all these operated as so many causes for exaggeration; while their moving in whole communities, not only of warriors, but including their old men, women, and children, (whose numbers, it hardly needs to be noticed, must always have greatly preponderated,) swelled those irruptions apparently to a most formidable amount. But, had they been duly analyzed, they would have been deemed contemptible, though they had comprised, as they often did, the entire inhabitants of the country they occupied. Such, for instance, as those of the Cimbri, the Helvetii, the Suevi, and others. The number of one of these entire nations has been already noticed, from Cæsar; and his spirit of exaggeration, when his own exploits were the subject of his pen, may be learnt from his setting forth the inhabitants of Britain as so prodigiously numerous', though the representation was totally irreconcileable with the rest of his accounts of the country. But it is from such descriptions that we may best determine whether those regions, which wondering ages, from the Monk Jornandes downwards, have denominated the officina gentium,-vagina nutionum, &c., had the plea of want of room for their murderous migrations.

(11) The vast country which Tacitus, in his celebrated Tract, denominates Germany, he describes as friendly to vegetation, the soil productive of corn, and well stocked with cattle2: but, indeed, his evidence is superfluous, as to the fact of the natural adaptation of

1 Cæsar, Comm., v. 10. Hominum 2 Tacitus, De Mor. Germ., § 5. est infinita multitudo.

that extensive region to the production of all that is necessary to human subsistence. At that period the great proportion of it had never been reclaimed by man from the wildest state of nature. Its general description, therefore, was that of a cheerless scene, covered with the gloom of forests, and deformed with wide extended marshes', full of unprofitable heaths and unhealthful pools2. Cæsar mentions several of these forests3, one of which he describes as five days' journey broad, and sixty long ; and even in Gaul, which he represents as so much more populous, his operations perpetually imply the fact, which is, indeed, often expressed, that much of the country was still almost in forest; the cultivated lands being only exceptions to its general state. The custom he mentions, of having their houses surrounded by a wood, and near a river", is conclusive as to the thinness of the population; the reason he assigns for the choice which he gives us to suppose was general, is foreign to this inquiry. But it is with the situation of Germany, which was the same as that of Gaul before the Romans had partially introduced civilization, that we have mainly to do, the former country being that officina gentium alluded to.

(12) It is impossible to reconcile the accounts we have of the Germans with any state but that of a very scanty and scattered population. They had no cities", nor connected villages", but dwelt in separate huts, dispersed up and down, as a wood, a meadow, or a fountain happened to invite them; their dwellings were not allowed to be contiguous, but a vacant space

was left around each of them1. Nor did they settle even in these; it was their object to keep up a restless and migratory spirit, and an aversion from cultivation, in their whole community; and the vast space they occupied, in proportion to their numbers, enabled them to accomplish it. Tacitus and Cæsar concur in stating the fact; the latter assigns the reason. Their practice of annually shifting, and allotting fresh lands to each, is frequently alluded to3; the ease with which it was accomplished, is noticed, and attributed to the vast extent of country which they possessed; where, though they thus cultivated a fresh soil every year, there was no want of land, but much still remained to spare, and unoccupied*,

(13) These communities were, therefore, perpetually in motion; and we read of some entire tribes that had been wandering, for years, through these northern forests before they emerged to notice, Nor does it seem impossible, that they might have done so without encountering much hostility, as we learn (and the fact is worthy of remark, as a strong proof that room was superfluous in these regions, whatever food might have been) that their various states were seated among, and surrounded by, forests, not only on a principle of defence, but of ostentation. Indeed, Cæsar tells us, that they accounted it their greatest national glory that the country should be laid waste as far around them as possible; and he gives us an instance of a nation, having on one side a desolate tract of six hundred miles in extent.

(14) These, together with many other circumstances, which might be adduced, were it necessary,

and, above all, those habits, passions, and pursuits, by which they were distinguished, and which exist only in an early stage of society, wholly disprove the idea of a redundant population, at that period, in the vast and fertile regions of Germany. The numbers that did then inhabit those immense districts, it is now impossible to determine; those of Gaul, however, which was far more densely peopled, we are enabled to guess at, from some evidence that has reached our times. Not to refer the reader again to the recorded number of the inhabitants of the country of the Helvetii, forming a part of it, nor to the number it was then calculated one third of its finest districts could sustain, we shall appeal to a much later account, when the inhabitants of that province, far more extensive than present France, had been doubtless increased greatly by the long intervening period of comparative prosperity which it had enjoyed; and then the number of heads paying tax to the Roman empire were, according to a probable calculation, about five hundred thousand'. Without affecting to be able to determine, with any degree of exactness, the proportion that these bore to the whole number of the inhabitants, we may safely assert them to have been very inconsiderable, in comparison with the present population of that fine and fertile region, which it would appear no exaggeration to any who have seen it throughout, to state, is not even now half cultivated, nor, consequently, subsisting any thing approaching to its proper population.

(15) If, then, the population of Gaul, at the period of these irruptions, was, comparatively speaking, thin, which the descriptions of the country, still more than the direct facts advanced, oblige us to believe; what was that of Germany?—all but a

See Gibbon, History of the Decline, &c., vol. iii., p. 88.

solitude! The very numbers sent forth on these occasions, which, I must again repeat, were, on every possible supposition, highly exaggerated; although often consisting, as Mr. Malthus's authority, Machiavelli, remarks," of an entire nation, with their wives and "children, leaving its own country to fix themselves "elsewhere," which motive, and mode of warfare, were that, as he well observes, which rendered them so formidable,-I say, the very numbers given are, under such circumstances, sufficient evidence of themselves of the scanty population of the districts they deserted; and, as Gibbon says on one of these occasions, "would, if fairly stated, appear contemptible."

(16) It is concluded, however, not only that these migrations were composed almost universally of the redundant numbers alone, sent forth by lot, as we have previously seen, but that they left no chasm in the population from which they were rejected. This view of the subject is perfectly consistent with the theory in question, and, indeed, necessary to it; but as clearly inconsistent with facts.

(17) One of the first of these northern irruptions was that of the Cimbri and Teutones; it occurred six or seven centuries after the founding of Rome-a long interval of accumulating redundancy, according to the theory of superfecundity. Now, we know that this was no struggle for room; for, between their Chersonesus and the plains of Italy, there was unoccupied space enough, and none could have disputed with them a settlement. That it was not a mere disburdening of superfluous numbers, is equally certain: it was a total evacuation. Had the theory of this struggling for room been true, the vacant territory would have been speedily repossessed, especially as the pressure of the Roman empire, in the plenitude