XXX. CHAP. many were fhaken by the northern emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the fingle force. of the Vandals; who, regardless of the leffons of adverfity, had again feparated their troops from the ftandard of their Barbarian allies. They paid the penalty of their rafhnefs; and twenty thoufand Vandals, with their king Godigifclus, were flain in the field of battle. The whole people must have been extirpated, if the fquadrons of the Alani, advancing to their relief, had not trampled down the infantry of the Franks; who, after an honourable refiftance, were compelled to relinquifh the unequal conteft. . The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year, in a feafon when the waters of the Rhine were moft probably frozen, they entered, without oppofition, the defencelefs provinces of Gaul. This memorable paffage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be confidered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had fo long separated the favage and the civilifed nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment' levelled with the ground While the peace of Germany was fecured by the attachment of the Franks, and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the fubjects of Rome, uncon 88 See Zofimus (1. vi. p. 373.), Orofius (1. vii. c. 40. p. 576.), and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (1. ii. c. 9. p. 165. in the fecond volume of the Hiftorians of France) has preferved a valuable fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, whofe three names de note a Chriftian, a Roman fubje&t; and a Semi-barbarian, fcious XXX. cious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed CHAP. the ftate of quiet and profperity, which had feldom bleffed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the pastures of the Barbarians; their huntfmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood. The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like thofe of the Tyber, with elegant houfes, and well cultivated farms; and if a poet defcended the river, he might exprefs his doubt, on which fide was fituated the territory of the Romans". This fcene of peace and plenty was fuddenly changed into a defert; and the profpect of the fmoking ruins could alone diftinguish the folitude of nature from the defolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and deftroyed; and many thoufand Chriftians were inhumanly maffacred in the church. Worms perished after a long and obftinate fiege; Strafburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppreffion of the German yoke; and the confuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the feventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich 89 Clandian (i Conf. Stil. 1. i. 221. &c. l. ii. 186.) defcribes the peace and profperity of the Gallic frontier. The Abbé Dubos (Hift. Critique, &c. tom. i. p. 174.) would read Alba (a nameless rivulet of the Ardennes) inftead of Abis ; and expatiates on the danger of the Gallic cattle grazing beyond the Elbe. Foolish enough! In poetical geography, the Elbe, and the Hercynian, fignify any river, or any wood, in Germany. Claudian is not prepared for the Arict examination of our antiquaries. go Geminafque viator Cum videat ripas, quæ fit Romana requirat. VOL. V. and 惹 CHAP. and extenfive country, as far as the ocean, the XXX. Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before them, in a promifcuous crowd, the bifhop, the fenator, and the virgin, laden with the fpoils of their houses and altars". The ecclefiaftics, to whom we are indebted for this vague defcription of the public calamities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting the Chriftians to repent of the fins which had provoked the Divine Juftice, and to renounce the perishable goods of a wretched and deceitful world. But as the Pelagian controverfy 92, which attempts to found the abyss of grace and predeftination, foon became the ferious employment of the Latin clergy; the Providence which had decreed, or foreseen, or permitted fuch a train of moral and natural evils, was rafhly weighed in the imperfect and fallacious balance of reafon. The crimes, and the misfortunes, of the suffering people, were prefumptuously compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the Divine Juftice, which did not exempt from the common destruction the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human fpecies. Thefe idle 91 Jerom, tom. i. p. 93. See in the 1ft vol. of the Hiftorians of France, p. 777. 782. the proper extracts from the Carmen de Providentiâ Divinâ, and Salvian. The anonymous poet was himself a captive, with his bishop and fellow-citizens. 92 The Pelagian doctrine, which was firft agitated A. D. 405, was condemned, in the space of ten years, at Rome and Carthage. St. Auguftin fought and conquered: but the Greek church was favourable to his adverfaries; and (what is fingular enough) the people did not take any part in a difpute which they could not underftand. difputants difputants overlooked the invariable laws of na- 93 See the Memoires de Guillaume du Bellay, L. vi. In French, the original reproof is lefs obvious, and more pointed, from the double sense of the word. journée, which alike fignifies, a day's travel, or a battle. CHAP. XXX. XXX. CHAP. the divided troops of the favages of the Baltic, whofe numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible, advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenean mountains. Revolt of army, In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the the British vigilance of Stilicho had fuccefsfully guarded the A.D.407. remote ifland of Britain from her inceffant enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the Irish coaft 94. But thofe reftlefs Barbarians could not neglect the fair opportunity of the Gothic war, when the walls and ftations of the province were ftripped of the Roman troops. If any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of Honorius must have tended to diffolve the bonds of allegiance, and to exafperate the feditious temper of the British army. The fpirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the foldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates, who were the objects of their choice, were the inftruments, and at length the victims, of their paffion 25. Marcus was 94 Claudian (i Conf. Stil. I. ii. 250.). It is fuppofed, that the Scots of Ireland invaded, by fea, the whole western coaft of Britain : and fome flight credit may be given even to Nennius and the Irish traditions (Carte's Hift. of England, vol. i. p. 169. Whitaker's Genuine Hiftory of the Britons, p. 199.). The fixty-fix lives of St. Patrick, which were extant in the ninth century, must have contained as many thoufand lies; yet we may believe, that, in one of thefe Irish inroads, the future apoftle was led away captive (Ufher, Antiquit. Ecclef. Britann. p. 431. and Tillemont, Mem. Ecclef. tom. vi. p. 456. 782, &c.). 95 The British ufurpers are taken from Zofimus (1. vi. p. 371— 37.5-), Orofius (1. vii. c. 40. p. 576, 577.), Olympiodorus (apud Photium, |