The Roman Empire, at its fall, was resolved into the elements of which it had been composed, and the preponderance of municipal rule and government was again everywhere visible. The Roman world had been formed of cities, and to cities again it returned. - GUIZOT.

Perhaps no one arc or segment, detached from the total cycle of human records, promises so much beforehand-so much instruction, so much gratification to curiosity, so much splendor, so much depth of interest, as the great period- the systole and diastole, flux and reflux - of the Western Roman Empire. Its parentage was magnificent and Titanic. It was a birth out of the death-struggles of the colossal republic; its foundations were laid by that sublime dictator, "the foremost man of all this world," who was unquestionably, for comprehensive talents, the Lucifer, the Protagonist, of all antiquity. Its range, the compass of its extent, was appalling to the imagination. Coming last amongst what are called the great monarchies of Prophecy, it was the only one which realized in perfection the idea of a monarchia, being (except for Parthia and the great fable of India beyond it) strictly coincident with ǹ oikovμévŋ, or the civilized world. Civilization and this empire were commensurate; they were interchangeable ideas and coextensive. Finally, the path of this great empire, through its arch of progress, synchronized with that of Christianity; the ascending orbit of each was pretty nearly the same, and traversed the same series of generations. These elements, in combination, seemed to promise a succession of golden harvests. From the specular station of the Augustan Age, the eye caught glimpses by anticipation of some glorious Eldorado for human hopes. What was the practical result for our historic experience? Answer, - a sterile Zaarrah. Prelibations, as of some heavenly vintage, were inhaled by the Virgils of the day, looking forward in the spirit of prophetic rapture; whilst in the very sadness of truth, from that age forwards the Roman world drank from stagnant marshes. A Paradise of roses was prefigured; a wilderness of thorns was found. - DE QUINCEY.

The gradual decline of the most extraordinary dominion which has ever invaded and oppressed the world; the fall of that immense empire, erected on the ruins of so many kingdoms, republics, and states, both barbarous and civilized, and forming in its turn, by its dismemberment, a multitude of states, republics, and kingdoms; the annihilation of the religion of Greece and Rome; the birth and the

progress of the two new religions which have shared the most beautiful regions of the earth; the decrepitude of the ancient world, the spectacle of its expiring glory and degenerate manners; the infancy of the modern world, the picture of its first progress, of the new direction given to the mind and character of man, - such a subject must necessarily fix the attention and excite the interest of men, who cannot behold with indifference those memorable epochs during which, in the fine language of Corneille, "Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s'achève.". - GUIZOT.

When Rome the head of the world shall have fallen, who can doubt that the end is come of human things, aye, of the earth itself? She, she alone, is the state by which all things are upheld even until now; wherefore let us make prayers and supplications to the God of heaven, if indeed his decrees and his purposes can be delayed, that that hateful tyrant come not sooner than we look for, he for whom are reserved fearful deeds, who shall pluck out that eye in whose extinction the world itself shall perish. LACTANTIUS.

Although the Romans ceased to form a state, still the history of this nation did not yet become extinct; and even their literature continued to exist partly at Rome, partly at Ravenna. We still possess a number of small poems and inscriptions on tombs and churches, many of which are elegant and beautiful. One sees that the times were not yet barbarous, and Boethius was worthy of the best ages of literature. . . . The Roman law continued much more uninterruptedly than is commonly believed. An account of the continued influence of the Roman intellect would be very attractive and desirable. - NIEBUHR.

This Citie, which was first but shepheards shade,
Uprising by degrees, grewe to such height,
That Queene of land and sea her selfe she made.
At last, not able to bear so great weight,
Her power, disperst, through all the world did vade;
To shew that all in th' end to nought shall fade.

SPENSER.

The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire,
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride;

She saw her glories star by star expire,

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,

Where the car climbed the capitol; far and wide

Temple and tower went down, nor left a site :
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,

O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,

And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night?

BYRON.

Amidst these scenes, O pilgrim! seek'st thou Rome?

Vain is thy search, the pomp of Rome is fled; Her silent Aventine is glory's tomb;

Her walls, her shrines, but relics of the dead.
That hill, where Cæsars dwelt in other days,

Forsaken mourns where once it towered sublime;
Each mouldering medal now far less displays
The triumphs won by Latium than by Time.
Tiber alone survives, — the passing wave
That bathed her towers now murmurs by her grave, ·
Wailing with plaintive sound her fallen fanes.

Rome! of thine ancient grandeur all is passed,
That seemed for years eternal framed to last;
Naught but the wave - a fugitive — remains.

DE QUEVEDO. Tr. Hemans.

O Rome, whose steps of power were necks of kings!
Europe, the earth, beneath her eagle's wings,
How, like a thing divine, she ruled the world!
Her finger lifted, thrones to dust were hurled:
High o'er her site the goddess Victory flew,

Mars waved his sword, and Fame her trumpet blew.
What is she now? a widow with bowed head,

Her empire vanished, and her heroes dead;

Weeping she sits, a lone and dying thing,
Beneath the yew, and years no solace bring:
What is she now? a dream of wonder past,

A tombless skeleton, dark, lone, and vast,
Whose heart of fire hath long, long ceased to burn,
Whose ribs of marble e'en to dust return.

Her shade alone, the ghost of ancient power,
Wanders in gloom o'er shrine and crumbling tower,
Points with its shadowy hand to Cæsar's hall,
Sighs beneath arches tottering to their fall,
And glides down stately Tiber's rushing waves,
That seem to wail through all their hoary caves.
N. MICHELL.

For Rome was then abandoned so of all,
In her memorials was seen her fall;

Grand monuments in which her pride was placed
Were by the Goth put to an abject use;

What held her sacred ashes found abuse,

Into a trough debased.

JEAN REBOUL. Tr. C. F. Bates.

Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still

The fount at which the panting mind assuages
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill.

BYRON.

OTHER MOVEMENTS OF THE NORTHERN
NATIONS.

THE important movements and conquests of the barbarians were, however, by no means confined to those immediately connected with the fall of the city of Rome and the surrounding Italy in 476. The Visigoths [West Goths], under Alaric, sacked Rome in 410, and overran all Southern Italy. "At the hour of midnight the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet; and eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the founding of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and civilized so considerable a portion of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia."

Across the everlasting Alp

I poured the torrent of my powers,

And feeble Cæsars shrieked for help

In vain within their seven-hilled towers.

E. EVERETT.

A Visigothic kingdom in Spain and Southern Gaul began in 410. In 489, Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths [East

Goths], overthrew the Visigoth Odoacer in Italy, and ruled from 493 to 526 over a strong and independent state, reaching far beyond Italy. The Vandals settled in Spain, and in 429 crossed to Africa, where they founded a kingdom. The Franks came into power in Northern Gaul, under Clovis, who ruled from 481 to 511. The Burgundians founded a state in Southeastern Gaul.

It must not be supposed that the invasions of the barbarian hordes stopped all at once, in the fifth century. Do not believe that because the Roman Empire was fallen, and kingdoms of barbarians founded upon its ruins, the movement of nations was over. GUIZOT.

The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes crossed over into Britain, which was evacuated by the Romans in 410, and there laid the foundation of the English nation.

Whereupon they [the Britons] suffered many years under two very savage foreign nations, the Scots from the west and the Picts from the north. We call these foreign nations, not on account of their being seated out of Britain, but because they were remote from that part of it which was possessed by the Britons. — THE VENERABLE BEDE.