Cattegat from the ocean, between the extreme point of this sand-bank, called the Scaw or Scaggerack, and the granitic ground-rock of the great Scandinavian peninsula at Gottenburg on the Swedish coast. If this sandbank were washed away by the same power that raised it—and within the last forty years a large portion of the north end of it has become an island, and a new entrance into the Baltic has been forced by the North Sea through the Lymfiord-the North of Europe would, to a great extent, be again under the waters of one vast northern ocean.

The reader of history, as well as the physical geographer, may find much to reflect upon in this unregarded tract of land. Here was the home of the three tribes, the Juti, Angli, and Frisi, who, according to the Venerable Bede, and all the traditionary history of the fifth century, invaded England about forty years after the Romans had finally abandoned the island, and established seven or rather eight little independent kingdoms, exterminating the original British inhabitants, or, what is more natural and probable, becoming insensibly amalgamated with them, and driving into Wales the remnant they could not subdue. There is much obscurity in this portion of English history. Hengist and Horsa- the stallion and the mare-may have been the names of the leaders of the first expedition, or possibly only the names of the vessels they commanded. Angeln may have been merely the name of a very small district still called Angeln, which had served as the rendezvous, and the wharf of embarkation, for a multitude of adventurers from the Danish islands, and other countries, and who would naturally be called Angli because they sailed from this district, and probably

spoke the same dialect as its inhabitants. Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet, may have been merely assumed by tradition as their first landing-place, because, thereabout, also, the Romans landed on their first expeditions; and the two traditions may have become blended together. The detail of this part of AngloSaxon history rests entirely upon traditions collected in Kent for the Venerable Bede, as he tells us, by certain monks of his acquaintance. But the "Historia Ecclesiastica" of Bede was written about the year 731, and the first expedition under Hengist and Horsa took place in the year 449. Three hundred years, nearly, had elapsed between the events and the time when the traditions of them were collected, and transmitted orally, or by letters, to Bede, and by him committed to writing, and formed into history, in his cloister at Bishopwearmouth, four hundred miles distant from where the traditions were circulating, and preserved. Of what historical value are such traditions after the lapse of two or three hundred years? How much of the events of the reign of Edward VI. or of Queen Mary's, or Elizabeth's, could be collected by a clergyman, in Kent or Middlesex, from the traditions now circulating among the people? The main facts only of such traditions can be received as genuine history. These, however, as delivered by the Venerable Bede, are clear, consistent, and important, and, when we consider the chaos of traditions out of which he must have laboured to collect and unite a consistent and probable account of events which took place nearly three hundred years before his time, we must admire the judgment and industry of the father of English history. The main facts are, that from this penin

sula, north of the Elbe, came the people who, about the middle of the fifth century, invaded England; that they came in three tribes, Angli, Frisi, and Juti; that, although of one race, they were in language, laws, and customs so distinct from each other, that they conquered separately, settled separately, and formed distinct and separate kingdoms in England, often, or rather always, at war with each other, and each with usages, establishments, and a nationality of its own, and that they were in this social state when Bede wrote his "Historia Ecclesiastica." They were not amalgamated into one nation until more than a century after his time.

It is remarkable that the three tribes, with their distinct usages, languages, and idiosyncracies, still exist separately, and unamalgamated, in their original homes in this peninsula. The Jutlanders speak their own Danish dialect, live apart, and are physically and socially a different tribe of people from the Angli, or inhabitants of the south of Sleswick, and of Holstein, who speak the Platt Deutsch. The Frisians, who occupy the islands and west coast of the peninsula, from the Eyder to the Elbe, are a distinct people in dialect, customs, and all that distinguishes tribe from tribe, from either of the other two. The three tribes dwell now in the homes of their forefathers, in the same order in which they are described by Bede, viz., the Angli, or Germanic people, between the Juti and the Frisi.

It is very remarkable that in all countries, excepting Germany, the progress of civilisation has been marked by the progress of nationality. France, England, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, as they emerged from barbarism, gradually amalgamated,

and consolidated into one nation, all the little independent or half-independent sovereignties, states, and tribes which occupied the land. The heptarchy established by the three tribes in England became very soon one nation, imbued with a common national spirit, and were more nationalised in the course of three centuries, in England, than the three tribes from which they sprang are now, in their own country, in the nineteenth century. In France the different kingdoms, lordships, or provinces, with different laws, usages, and languages, into which the country was divided after the age of Charlemagne, became gradually amalgamated and nationalised, and the inhabitants became one nation, even when laws, languages, and usages were still distinct. The tendency of civilisation has always been towards nationality, towards common feelings, common interests, in every country, even where the people have neither had a common language and law, nor a common religion and common rights. Germany is the only exception. It is still, in the nineteenth century, in the same state with regard to the nationality of the German people, in which it was in the first century. It is still, as described by Tacitus, a country inhabited by thirty-six or thirty-eight tribes, speaking a common language, of one race, and capable of uniting and acting together as one nation to repel a common foe, but falling asunder when the emergency that called them out is past, and each living for itself, with its own local government, laws, and usages. It is still a country divided into about the same number of social divisions or states, as described by Tacitus, and in nearly the same localities, and with the same social character. The great united effort of the

The

German people, in 1813, to drive the French across the Rhine, was but a repetition of the great united effort of the German people against the Roman invaders of their country. The success was the same, and the result was the same. Varus was defeated, and each tribe returned to its own isolated, social state. Napoleon was defeated, and each of the thirtysix semi-independent states of Germany started up again in its own locality. In 1848 we have witnessed another great effort of the German people to unite, and make themselves one nation. It has failed. great mass of the German people seemed not to want a nationality. The enlightened, the educated, the youth, and the teachers of the youth, the professors, students, literary men, idle men, speculative men, clergy, lawyers, functionaries, newspaper editors, all these classes were enthusiastic for the creation of one united German nation, with one common government and law, extending from the Rhine to the Vistula, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, comprehending forty millions of people, and taking her seat among nations, with armies, fleets, finances, and the political influence due to the civilisation and power of this one united Germany. But the forty millions, although worked upon incessantly, since 1816, at schools and universities, from the pulpit and from the stage, in prose and verse, in clubs, in secret societies, in musical meetings, and by the power of the press wielded by the most influential individuals, and by writers of the highest talent and reputation, could not, somehow, be nationalised, could not be brought to sympathise with the agitation of the classes so enthusiastic for a new German nationality. Men and money to support the cause were not