17 Recherches Philofophiques fur les Américains, tom. iii. p. 228. The author of that very curious work is, if I am not misinformed, a German by birth.

18 The Alexandrian Geographer is often criticised by the accurate Cluverius.

19 See Cæfar, Manchefter, vol. i.

and the learned Mr. Whitaker in his History of

20 Tacit. Germ. 15.

21 When the Germans commanded the Ubii of Cologne to caft off the Roman yoke, and with their new freedom to resume their ancient manners, they infifted on the immediate demolition of the walls of the colony. "Poftulamus a vobis, muros coloniæ, munimenta fervitii detrahatis; etiam fera animalia, fi claufa teneas, virtutis oblivifcuntur. " Tacit. Hift. iv. 64.

"

22 The straggling villages of Silefia are several miles in length. See Cluver. 1. i. c. 13.

23 One hundred and forty years after Tacitus, a few more regular Structures were erected near the Rhine and Danube. Herodian, 1. vii, P. 234.

24 Tacit. Germ 17.

25 Tacit. Germ. 5.

26 Cæfar de Bell. Gall. vi. 2T,

27 Tacit. Germ. 26. Cæfar, vi. 22.

28 Tacit. Germ: 6.

29 It is faid that the Mexicans and Peruvians, without the ufe of either money or iron, had made a very great progrefs in the arts. Thofe arts, and the monuments they produced have been strangely magnified. See Recherches fur les Américains, tom. ii. p. 153, etc. 30 Tacit. Germ. 15.

31 Tacit. Germ 22, 23.

32 Id. 24. The Germans might borrow the arts of play from the Romans, but the passion is wonderfully inherent in the human species. 33 Tacit. Germ. 14.

34 Plutarch. in Camillo. T. Liv. v 33.

35 Dubos. Hift. de la Monarchie Françoife, tom. i. p. 193.

36 The Helvetian nation, which iffued from the country called Switzerland, contained, of every age and fex, 358,000 perfons (Cæfar de Bell Gall. i. 29.). At prefent, the number of people in the Pays de Vaud (a fmall diftrict on the banks of the Leman Lake, much more diftinguished for politeness than for industry) amounts to 112,591 See an excellent Tract of M. Muret, in the Mémoires de la Société de Berne.

37 Paul Diaconus, c. 1, 2, 3. Machiavel, Davila, and the rest of Paul's followers, reprefent thefe emigrations too much as regular and concerted measures.

38 Sir William Temple and Montefquieu have indulged, on this fubject, the ufual liveliness of their fancy.

39 Machiavel Hift. di Firenza, 1. i. Mariana Hift. Hifpan. 1. v. c. I. 40 Robertfon's Charles V. Hume's Political Effays.

41 Tacit. German. 44, 45. Frenshemius (who dedicated his fupplement to Livy, to Chriftina of Sweden) thinks proper to be very angry with the Roman who expreffed fo very little reverence for Northern queens.

42 May we not fufpect that fuperftition was the parent of defpot. ifm? The defcendants of Odin (whofe race was not extinct till the year 1060) are faid to have reigned in Sweden above a thousand years. The temple of Upfal was the ancient feat of religion and empire. In the year 1153 I find a fingular law, prohibiting the ufe and profeffion of arms to any except the king's guards. Is it not probable that it was coloured by the pretence of reviving an old inftitution? See Dalin's Hiftory of Sweden in the Bibliothéque Raisonnée, tom. xl.

and xlv.

43 Tacit. Germ. c. 43.

44 Id. c. II, 12, 13, etc.

45 Grotius changes an expreffion of Tacitus, pertractantur into pra tractantur. The correction is equally just and ingenious.

46 Even in our ancient parliament, the barons often carried a quef tion, not fo much by the number of votes, as by that of their armed followers.

47 Cæfar de Bell. Gall. vi. 23.

48 Minuunt controverfias, is a very happy expreffion of Cæfar's. 49 Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute fumunt. Tacit. Germ. 7. 50 Cluver. Germ. Ant. 1. i. c. 38.

51 Cæfar, vi. 22. Tacit. Germ. 26.

52 Tacit. Germ. 7.

53 Tacit. Germ. 13, 14.

54 Efprit des Loix, 1. xxx. c. 3. The brilliant imagination of Montefquieu is corrected, however, by the dry cold reafon of the Abbé de Mably. Obfervations fur l'Hiftoire de France, tom. i. p. 356. 55 Gaudent muneribus, fed nec data imputant, nec acceptis obli gantur. Tacit. Germ. c. 21.

56 The adulterefs was whipped through the village. Neither wealth nor beauty could infpire compaffion, or procure her a fecond husband, 18, 19.

57 Ovid employs two hundred lines in the refearch of places the most favourable to love. Above all, he confiders the theatre as the best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and to melt them into tenderness and fenfuality.

58 Tacit. Hift. iv. 61. 65.

59 The marriage prefent was a yoke of oxen, horfes, and arms. See Germ. c. 18. Tacitus is fomewhat too florid on the fubject.

The change of exigere into exugere is a most excellent correction. 1 Tacit. Germ. c. 7. Plutarch in Mario. Before the wives of the Teutones deftroyed themfelves and their children, they had offered to furrender, on condition that they should be received as the slaves of the veftal virgins.

62 Tacitus has employed a few lines, and Cluverius one hundred and twenty-four pages, on this obfcure fubject. The former discovers in Germany the gods of Greece and Rome. The latter is pofitive, that, under the emblems of the fun, the moon

pious ancestors worshipped the Trinity in unity.

and the fire, his

63 The facred wood, defcribed with fuch fublime horror by Lucan, was in the neighbourhood of Marfeilles; but there were many of the fame kind in Germany.

64 Tacit. Germania, c. 7.

65 Tacit. Germania, c. 40.

66 See Dr. Robertfon's Hiftory of Charles V. vol. i. note 10.

67 Tacit. Germ. c. 7. These ftandards were only the heads of wild beafts.

68 See an inftance of this cuftom, Tacit. Annal. xiii. 57.

69 Cæfar, Diodorus, and Lucan, feem to afcribe this doctrine to

the Gauls, but M. Pelloutier (Hiftoire des Celtes, 1. iii. c. 18.) labours

to reduce their expreffions to a more orthodox sense.

fee

79 Concerning this grofs but alluring doctrine of the Edda, Fable xx. in the curious version of that book, published by M. Malį let, in his Introduction to the Hiftory of Denmark.

71 See Tacit. Germ c. 3. Diodor. Sicul. 1. v. Strabo, 1. iv. p. 197. The claffical reader may remember the rank of Demodocus in the Phæacian court, and the ardour infused by Tyrtæus into the fainting Spartans. Yet there is little probability that the Greeks and the Ger mans were the fame people. Much learned trifling might be spared, if our antiquarians would condefcend to reflect, that fimilar manners will naturally be produced by fimilar fituations.

72 Miffilia fpargunt, Tacit. Germ. c. 6. Either that historian used a vague expreffion, or he meant that they were thrown at random. 73 It was their principal diftinction from the Sarmatians, who ge nerally fought on horfeback.

74 The relation of this enterprife occupies a great part of the fourth and fifth books of the Hiftory of Tacitus, and is more remarkable for its eloquence than perfpicuity. Sir Henry Saville has obferved feveral

inaccuracies.

75 Tacit. Hift. iv. 13. Like them, he had loft an eye.

76 It was contained between the two branches of the old Rhine, as they fubfifted before the face of the country was changed by art and

nature. See Cluver. German. Antiq. 1. iii. c. 30. 37.

77 Cæfar de Bell. Gall. 1. vi. 23.

78 They are mentioned however in the ivth and vth centuries by

Nazarius, Ammianus, Claudian, etc.. as a tribe of Franks. See Cluver. Germ. Antiq. 1. iii. c. 13.

79 Urgentibus is the common reading, but good fenfe, Lipfius, and fome MSS. declare for Vergentibus.

80 Tacit. Germania, c 33. The pious Abbé de la Bléterie is very angry with Tacitus, talks of the devil who was a murderer from the beginning, etc. etc.

81 Many traces of this policy may be difcovered in Tacitus and Dion; and many more may be inferred from the principles of human

nature.

s2 Hift. Auguft. p. 31. Ammian. Marcellin. 1. xxxi. c. 5. Aurel. Victor. The emperor Marcus was reduced to fell the rich furniture of the palace, and to inlift slaves and robbers.

83 The Marcomanni, a colony, who, from the banks of the Rhine, occupied Bohemia and Moravia, had once erected a great and formidable monarchy under their king Maroboduus. See Strabo, 1. vii. Vell. Pat. ii. 108. Tacit. Annal. ii. 63.

84 Mr. Wotton (Hiftory of Rome, p. 166.) increases the prohibition to ten times the diftance. His reafoning is fpecious, but not conclufive. Five miles were fufficient for a fortified barrier.

85 Dion, 1. lxxi. and Ixxii.

86 See an excellent differtation on the origin and migrations of nations, in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Infcriptions, tom. xviii. p. 48-71. It is feldom that the antiquarian and the philofopher àre fo happily blended.

87 Should we fufpect that Athens contained only 21,000 citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on the number of mankind in ancient and modern times.

С НА Р. Х.

The expreffion ufed by Zofimus and Zonaras may fignify that Marinus commanded a century, a cohort, or a legion.

2 His birth at Bubalia, a little village in Pannonia (Eutrop. ix. Victor. in Cæfarib. et Epitom.), feems to contradict, unlefs it was merely accidental, his fuppofed defcent from the Decii. Six hundred years had beftowed nobility on the Decii; but at the commencement of that period, they were only Plebeians of merit, and among the first who shared the confulship with the haughty Patricians. Plebeia Deciorum animæ, etc. Juvenal, Sat. viii. 254. See the fpirited speech of Decius, in Livy, x. 9, 10.

3 Zofimus, 1. i. p. 20. Zonaras, 1. xii. p. 624. Edit. Louvre.

4 See the prefaces of Caffiodorus and Jornandes: it is surprising that the latter should be omitted in the excellent edition published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers.

On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes fome old Gothic chronicles in verfe. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4.

6 Jornandes, c. 3.

7 See in the Prolegomena of Grotius fome large extracts from Adam of Bremen, and Saxo-Grammaticus. The former wrote in the year 1077, the latter flourished about the year 1200.

8 Voltaire, Hiftoire de Charles XII. 1. iii. When the Auftrians defired the aid of the court of Rome against Gustavus Adolphus, they always reprefented that conqueror as the lineal fucceffor of Alaric. Harte's Hiftory of Guftavus, vol. ii. p. 123.

See Adam of Bremen in Grotii Prolegomenis, p. 194. The temple of Upfal was deftroyed by Ingo king of Sweden, who began his reign in the year 1075, and about fourscore years afterwards a Christian cathedral was erected on its ruins. See Dalin's History of Sweden, in the Bibliothéque Raisonnée.

1° Mallet, Introduction à l'Hiftoire du Dannemarc.

I Mallet, civ. p. 55, has collected from Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, and Stephanus Byzantinus, the veftiges of fuch a city and people.

12 This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by deducing the enmity of the Goths and Romans from fo memorable a cause, might fupply the noble groundwork of an Epic poem, cannot fafely be received as authentic hiftory. According to the obvious fenfe of the Edda, and the interpretation of the most skilful critics, As-gard, instead of denoting a real city of the Afiatic Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of the mystic abode of the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia; from whence the prophet was fuppofed to defcend, when he announced his new religion to the Gothic nations, who were already feated in the fouthern parts of Sweden.

13 Tacit. Germania, c. 44.

14 Tacit. Annal. ii. 62. If we could yield a firm affent to the navigations of Pytheas of Marseilles, we must allow that the Goths had paffed the Baltic at least three hundred years before Christ.

15 Ptolemy, 1. ii.

16 By the German Colonies who followed the arms of the Teutonic knights. The conqueft and converfion of Pruffia were completed by thofe adventurers in the xiiith century.

17 Pliny (Hift. Natur. iv. 14.), and Procopius (in Bell. Vandal. 1. i, c. I. agree in this opinion. They lived in diftant ages, and poffeffed different means of investigating the truth.

18 The Oftro and Vifi, the eastern and western Goths obtained those denominations from their original feats in Scandinavia. In all their future marches and fettlements they preferved, with their names, the fame relative fituation. When they first departed from Sweden, the infant colony was contained in three veffels. The third being a heavy failer lagged behind, and the crew, which afterwards fwelled into a nation, received from that circumftance the appellation of Gepida ar Loiterers. Jornandes, c. 17.