37

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bed of sickness by the invasion of his country; but ins n.ind was vigorous and his prudence successful. My companions," said he, on the morning of the combat, "maintain your ranks, receive on your bucklers the first arrows of the Pagans, and prevent their second discharge by the equal and rapid career of your lances." They obeyed and conquered: and the historical picture of the castle of Merseburgh expressed the features, or at least the character, of Henry, who, in an age of ignorance, intrusted to the finer arts the per petuity of his name. At the end of twenty years, the chil dren of the Turks who had fallen by his sword invaded the empire of his son; and their force is defined, in the lowest estimate, at one hundred thousand horse. They were invited by domestic faction; the gates of Germany were treacherously unlocked; and they spread, far beyond the Rhine and the Meuse, into the heart of Flanders. But the vigor and prudence of Otho dispelled the conspiracy; the princes were made sensible that unless they were true to each other, their religion and country were irrecoverably lost; and the nationa! powers were reviewed in the plains of Augsburgh. They marched and fought in eight legions, according to the division of provinces and tribes; the first, second, and third, were composed of Bavarians; the fourth, of Franconians; the fifth, of Saxons, under the immediate command of the monarch; the sixth and seventh consisted of Swabians; and the eighth legion, of a thousand Bohemians, closed the rear of the host. The resources of discipline and valor were fortified by the arts of superstition, which, on this occasion, may deserve the epithets of generous and salutary. The soldiers were purified with a

cum, p. 360--368, 427-470.) Liutprand (1. ii. c. 8, 9) is the best evidence for the former, and Witichind (Annal. Saxon. 1. iii.) of the latter; but the critical historian will not even overlook the horn of a warrior, which is said to be preserved at Jaz-berid.

37 Hunc vero triumphum, tam laude quam memoriâ dignum, ad Meresburgum rex in superiori cœnaculo domûs per Zwypapír, id est, picturam, notari præcepit, adeo ut rem veram potius quam verisimiIcm videas: a high encomium, (Liutprand, 1. ii. c. 9.) Another palace in Germany had been painted with holy subjects by the order of Charlemagne; and Muratori may justly affirm, nulla sæcula fuere in quibus pictores desiderati fuerint, (Antiquitat. Ital. Medii Evi, tom. ii. dissert. XXIV. p. 360, 361.) Our domestic claims to antiquity of ignorance and original imperfectica (Mr. Walpole's lively words are of a much more recent date, (Anecdotes of Painting, vol. i. f ?, &c.)

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fast; the camp was blessed with the relics of saints and martyrs; and the Christian hero girded on his side the sword of Constantine, grasped the invincible spear of Charlemagne, and waved the banner of St. Maurice, the præfect of the Thebæan legion. But his firmest confidence was placed in the holy lance, whose point was fashioned of the nails of the cross, and which his father had extorted from the king of Burgundy, by the threats of war, and the gift of a province. The Hungarians were expected in the front; they secretly passed the Lech, a river of Bavaria that falls into the Danube; turned the rear of the Christian army; plundered the baggage, and disordered the legion of Bohemia and Swabia. The battle was restored by the Franconians, whose duke, the valiant Conrad, was pierced with an arrow as he rested from his fatigues: the Saxons fought under the eyes of their king; and his victory surpassed, in merit and importance, the triumphs of the last two hundred years. The loss of the Hungarians was still greater in the flight than in the action; they were encompassed by the rivers of Bavaria; and their past cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy. Three captive princes were hanged at Ratisbon, the multitude of prisoners was slain or mutilated, and the fugitives, who presumed to appear in the face of their country, were condemned to everlasting poverty and disgrace." Yet the spirit of the nation was humbled, and the most accessible passes of Hungary were fortified with a ditch and rampart. Adversity suggested the counsels of moderation and peace: the robbers of the West acquiesced in a sedentary life; and the next generation was taught, by a discerning prince, that far more might be gained by multiplying and exchanging the produce of a fruitful soil. The native race, the Turkish or Fennic blood, was mingled with new colonies of Scythian or Sclavonian origin; many thousands of robust and industrious captives

38 See Baronius, Annal. Ecclés. A. D. 929, No. 2-5. The lance of Christ is taken from the best evidence, Liutprand, (1. iv. . 12,) Sigebert, and the Acts of St. Gerard: but the other military relics depend on the faith of the Gesta Anglorum post Bedam, 1. ii. c. 8. "Katona, Hist. Ducum Hungariæ, p. 500, &c.

40 Among these colonies we may distinguish, 1. The Chazars, or Cabai, who joined the Hungarians on their march, (Constant. de Adm. Imp. c. 39, 49, p. 108, 109.) 2. The Jazyges, Moravians, and Siculi, whom they found in the land; the last were perhaps a rein nant of the Huns of Attila, and were intrusted with the guard at

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haa been importea from all the countries of Europe;" and after the marriage of Geisa with a Bavarian princess, he be stowed honors and estates on the nobles of Germany." The son of Geisa was invested with the regal title, and the house of Arpad reigned three hundred years in the kingdom of Hungary. But the freeborn Barbarians were not dazzled by the Justre of the diadem, and the people asserted their indefeasi ble right of choosing, deposing, and punishing the hereditary ervant of the state.

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III The name of RUSSIANS was first divulged, in the

the borders. 3. The Russians, who, like the Swiss in France, imparted a general name to the royal porters. 4. The Bulgarians, whose chiefs (A. D. 956) were invited, cum magnâ multitudine His mahelitarum. Had any of those Sclavonians embraced the Mahometan religion? 5. The Bisseni and Cumans, a mixed multitude of Patzinacites, Uzi, Chazars, &c., who had spread to the Lower Danube The last colony of 40,000 Cumans, A. D. 1239, was received and con verted by the kings of Hungary, who derived from that tribe a new regal appellation, (Pray, Dissert. vi. vii. p. 109--173. Katona, Hist Ducum, p. 95-99, 259-264, 476, 479--483, &c.)

41 Christiani autem, quorum pars major populi est, qui ex omn parte mundi illuc tracti sunt captivi, &c. Such was the language of Piligrinus, the first missionary who entered Hungary, A. D. 973. Pars major is strong. Hist. Ducum, p. 517.

42 The fideles Teutonici of Geisa are authenticated in old charters: and Katona, with his usual industry, has made a fair estimate of these colonies, which had been so loosely magnified by the Italian Ranzanas, (Hist. Critic. Ducum. p, 667--681.)

43 Among the Greeks, this national appellation has a singular form, Pws, as an undeclinable word, of which many fanciful etymologies have been suggested. I have perused, with pleasure and profit, a dissertation de Origine Russorum (Comment. Academ. Petropolitanæ, tom. viii. p. 388-436) by Theophilus Sigefrid Bayer, a learned German, who spent his life and labors in the service of Russia. graphical tract of D'Anville, de l'Empire de Russie, son Origine, et ses Accroissemens, (Paris, 1772, in 12mo.,) has likewise been of use

A geo

The later antiquarians of Russia and Germany appear to aquiesce in the authority of the monk Nestor, the earliest annalist of Russia, who derives the Russians, or Vareques, from Scandinavia. The names of the Arst founders of the Russian monarchy are Scandinavian or Norman Their language (according to Const. Porphyrog. de Administrat. Imper. c. 9) differed essentially from the Sclavonian. The author of the Annals of St. Bertin, who first names the Russians (Rhos) in the year 839 of his Annals, assigns them Sweden for their country. So Liutprand calls the Russians the same people as the Normans. The Fins, Laplanders, and Esthonians, call the Swedes, to the present day, Roots, Rootsi, Ruotzi, Bootslaue. See Thunman, Untersuchungen über der Geschichte de Estlichen Europaischen Völker, p. 374. Gatterer, Comm. Societ Reg

ninth century, by an embassy of Theophilus, emperor of the East, to the emperor of the West, Lewis, the son of Chariemagne. The Greeks were accompanied by the envoys of the great duke, or chagan, or czar, of the Russians. In their journey to Constantinople, they had traversed many hostile nations; and they hoped to escape the dangers of their return, by requesting the French monarch to transport them by Bea to their native country. A closer examination detected their origin: they were the brethren of the Swedes and Normans, whose name was already odious and formidable in France; and it might justly be apprehended, that these Rus sian strangers were not the messengers of peace, but the emissaries of war. They were detained, while the Greeks were dismissed; and Lewis expected a more satisfactory account, that he might obey the laws of hospitality or prudence, according to the interest of both empires." This Scandina vian origin of the people, or at least the princes, of Russia, may be confirmed and illustrated by the national annals “ and the general history of the North. The Normans, who had so long been concealed by a veil of impenetrable darkness, suddenly burst forth in the spirit of naval and military enterprise. The vast, and, as it is said, the populous regions of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were crowded with independent chieftains and desperate adventurers, who sighed in the laziness of peace, and smiled in the agonies of death. Piracy was the exercise, the trade, the glory, and the virtue, of the Scandinavian youth. Impatient of a bleak climate

46

** See the entire passage (dignum, says Bayer, ut aureis in tabulis ǹgatur) in the Annales Bertiniani Francorum, (in Script. Ital. Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 525,) A. D. 839, twenty-two years before the æra of Ruric. In the xth century, Liutprand (Hist. I. v. c. 6) speaks of the Russians and Normans as the same Aquilonares homines of a red complexion.

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My knowledge of these annals is drawn from M. Levêque, Histoire de Russie. Nestor, the first and best of these ancient annalists, was a monk of Kiw, who died in the beginning of the xiith century; but his Chronicle was obscure, till it was published at Petersburgh, 1767, in 4to. Levêque, Hist. de Russie, tom. i. p. xvi. Travels, vol. ii. p. 184.*

Coxe'

Scient. Gotting. xiii. p. 126. Schlözer, in his Nestor. Koch. Revolut de 'Europe, vol i. p. 60. Malte-Brun, Geograph. vol. vi. p. 378.-M.

The late M. Schlözer has translated and added a commentary to the 'Annals of Nestor;" and his work is the mine from which henceforth the istory of the North must be drawn.-G.

and narrow limits, they started from the banquet, grasped their arms, sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement The Baltic was the first scene of their naval achievements they visited the eastern shores, the silent residence of Fennic and Sclavonic tribes, and the primitive Russians of the Lake Ladoga paid a tribute, the skins of white squirrels, to these strangers, whom they saluted with the title of Varangians or Corsairs. Their superiority in arms, discipline, and renown, commanded the fear and reverence of the natives. their wars against the more inland savages, the Varangians condescended to serve as friends and auxiliaries, and gradually, by choice or conquest, obtained the dominion of a people whom they were qualified to protect. Their tyranny was expelled, their valor was again recalled, till at length Ruric, a Scandinavian chief, became the father of a dynasty which reigned above seven hundred years. His brothers extended his influence the example of service and usurpation was imitated by his companions in the southern provinces of Russia; and their establishments, by the usual methods of war and assassination, were cemented into the fabric of a powerful monarchy.

As long as the descendants of Ruric were considered as aliens and conquerors, they ruled by the sword of the Varangians, distributed estates and subjects to their faithful captains, and supplied their numbers with fresh streams of adventurers from the Baltic coast."" But when the Scandinavian chiefs had struck a deep and permanent root into the soil, they mingled with the Russians in blood, religion, and language, and the first Waladimir had the merit of delivering his country from these foreign mercenaries. They had seat ed him on the throne; his riches were insufficient to satisfy their demands; but they listened to his pleasing advice, that they should seek, not a more grateful, but a more wealthy, master; that they should embark for Greece, where, instead of the skins of squirrels, silk and gold would be the recom

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Theophil. Sig. Bayer de Varagis, (for the name is differently spelt,) in Comment. Academ. Petropolitanæ, tom. iv. p. 275–311.

Yet, as late as the year 1018, Kiow and Russia were still guarded ex fugitivorum servorum robore, confluentium et maxime Danorum. Bayer, who quotes (p. 292) the Chronicle of Dithmar of Merseburgh, observes, that it was unusual for the Germans to enlist in a foreign service