know that the names of the confederations were always very loosely applied; it seems to show, however, that the Saxon confederation was not yet in existence. Of the tribes mentioned by Tacitus as neighbours of the Angles, only the Longobards and the Varini can be identified. The Longobards are ascertained to have dwelled on the east of the Elbe, south of the present town of Lüneburg; to the east of the Longobards was Slavonic land. It is interesting to know the Angles to have been so nearly cognate with the future conquerors of North Italy, the Longobards or Lombards. The Varini are considered to have dwelled to the North of the Longobards in present Mecklenburg and eastern Holstein. Their name is preserved in the district of Warnow, the river Warnow, the town of Warnemünde, etc., and even in the name of the capital, Schwerin, called by the natives Swerin, which is, of course Varin, in Mecklenburg. It is consequently very probable, that they were not Germans, but Slaves. We find them again mentioned in connexion with the Angles by Procopius (a. D. 534—547) in a love-story, in which Rodiger, a prince of the Varini, is said to have been betrothed to an Angle princess, who, being deserted by him, comes to meet him at the mouth of the Rhine. This seems to point to some connection having continued between the Angles and the Varini, even after the migration of the former to Britain. We find them again mentioned together as late as the tenth century in a code of laws of the Carolinian period, referring to that time and beginning thus: Incipit lex Anglorum et Werinorum, hoc est Thuringorum.' The law of the Angles and Werini,-that is to say, those of the Thuringians, that is, the law of the Angles et Warini in Thuringia, which shows that there was a colony of Angles, and of their neighbours, the Warini, which the Carolinians, according to their usual policy, had planted in the hostile and Slavonian Thuringia. This law has many striking resemblances with the AngloSaxon laws, such as the term 'Adalingus,' 'Anglosax,' ' Atheling,' the Wergild of 200 shillings for a freeman, the compensations for different kinds of bodily injuries. 6 We ascertain thus, that the Longobardi and the Varini dwelled to the east and the north-east of the Elbe, we know that the Chauci dwelled on the west bank of the Weser; that the Frisians occupied the sea-shore of present Hanover and Holstein, and that all the eastern part of Holstein was occupied by Slavonians; that the Angles had their original habitation between the Weser and the Elbe, in the east and north of the present kingdom of Hanover, but did not quite extend up to the sea-shore. They decidedly belonged to that complicity of German tribes denominated Saxon, and had no connection with the Danes or Scandinavians, as has been frequently entertained. Nor could they have come from the district of Anglia, the present Angola, in Sleswick, according to the venerable Bede, because this would militate entirely against the statements of Tacitus, Ptolemy, and Strabo, as to their original seat. That district is far too small to have produced those numerous Anglo invaders; but it is highly probable that the Angles extended at one time from Hanover right through East Holstein, into East Sleswick, their north end having subsequently been cut off by the intrusion of Slavonians into East Holstein. We have likewise ascertained that in the year 597 the Angles were settled in England. We have, finally, the probability that the invasion of the Angles took place during 450 to 500, because up to that time we have continuous Roman accounts from this country, and the Angles are never mentioned therein. The Angles must have come over in large bodies. Still, we cannot go quite along with Lappenberg and Latham, that Angle and Saxon in England are entirely convertible terms. The Angles in Germany were genuine Saxons, but then there were many Saxons in Germany that were not Angles, as the Angles were only one of many Saxon tribes. We have therefore no ground for asserting that the German people settled in England before the advent of the Angles were Angles. Saxons in England would accordingly mean the Germans settled there before the Angles. It seems to have been used in that sense by themselves. The Angles, as was natural for a people coming from the mouth of the Elbe, settled chiefly in the northern part of England, as is seen, for instance, in the names of the northern kingdoms of the Heptarchy, whereas the southern kingdoms called themselves Saxon, Wessex, Essex, Middlesex, etc. The Saxon element obtained, politically, the ascendancy, and it seems to us also ethnologically, for the Anglo-Saxon language seems to us to have been formed more by the Saxon (taking the word in the limited sense aforesaid), than by the Angle. Nevertheless, whether the Angles formed a more compact body, whilst the Saxons consisted originally of a greater variety of tribes, or whether the term Saxon, in its abstract meaning, did not apply to any particular tribe, the term Angle prevailed ultimately over the Saxon. When Egbert, king of Wessex, a kingdom evidently more Saxon than Angle, united the whole of the Heptarchy, he called it Aengla-land, England, and the language of the country was henceforth simply called 'seo Englisce sprace,'' die Englische sprache,' the English speech. GOTHIC REMAINS. Next to the great migration of nations, it was the spread of the Christian religion which powerfully promoted the mental development of the German nation. At the very outset of the history of our literature we mention with pride the great Ulfilas (A.D. 318388), a bishop of those ancient Moso-Goths, who, in the second century of the Christian era, had come from the northern part of Germany to invade Mœsia, a Roman province, situate on the southern banks of the Danube. Ulfilas, (Wulfila) a bishop, at the age of thirty, had, in consequence of religious persecution, been compelled to leave Dacia, then the abode of the Goths. This happened about the year 355. Followed by many of his disciples, he settled at the foot of Mount Hamus, where he preached in Latin, Greek, and Gothic, devoted himself to his holy mission with indefatigable zeal, and invented his Gothic characters, a combination of the ancient Runic and Greek letters. The very fact of a translation of the Bible for the Goths proves that they were possessed of a much higher state of civilization than is generally attributed to them. The very manner in which the translation has been made, pre-supposes a certain degree of developed mental culture. It is faithful, but spirited, and by no means a mere literal transcript. THE LORD'S PRAYER. Atta unsar thu in himinam, veihnai Vater unser vairthai vilja theins, sve in namo thein; qvimai dein Name; zu uns himina, jah ana wie im Himmel, also auch airthai; hlaif unsarana thana sinteinan gif uns himma daga, jah aflet uns tüglich Brot gieb uns heute; und vergieb auf Erden; unser vulthus in aivins. Amen. theina ist thiudangardi jah mahts jah dein ist das Reich und die Macht und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit. Amen. OLD HIGH GERMAN AND OLD LOW GERMAN (OLD GERMAN) REMAINS. The language of Germany appears already at the earliest period of which we have any knowledge, divided into two principal dialects the Higher or Upper German, subdivided into the Bavarian, the Swabian, or Alemannic, the Frankonian and the Thuringo-Hessian, and the Low-German, or Saxon. The oldest literary remains which we possess in either of these dialects, date from the 8th to the 10th century. The Upper-German in these remains is termed Old High-German, the Low-German, Old Low-German, or Old Saxon. During the Franconian period, from Charlemagne to the Swabian emperors (768-1137), our language improved considerably, thanks to the fostering care bestowed upon it by the great Charles. History, I am afraid, has not adequately appreciated the exertions of the man whose master-mind could conceive and carry out reforms at once so sweeping, so useful, and under such adverse circumstances; for Charlemagne's chief merit consists in having accomplished great deeds at a period when all was dark around him. The light which dispelled that mental darkness was in him, radiated from him, and was diffused through him. Evincing, on every occasion, the lively interest he took in the culture of the German language, he had it taught in schools, used in the pulpit, and in all judicial transactions. In conjunction with the learned of the age, he collected the nation's old laws and songs (describere et literis mandare fecit), as Eginhard, his secretary, informs us; and it is even said that he wrote a German grammar. His son, Lewis, the Pious, and still more, his grandson, Lewis, the German, followed the noble example of their ancestor; and the Treaty of Verdun (843), concluded between the latter and Charles the Bald, whilst rendering Germany a separate kingdom, contributed at the same time to the development of her literature, in the promotion of which many of Charlemagne's contemporaries took the same lively interest. Foremost among them we must mention here Alcuin, born at York, and equally distinguished as a theologian, mathematician, rhetorician, and astronomer. Most prominent among the promoters of national education at this period, stands Hrabanus Maurus, archbishop of Mayence (776-856), the founder of the convent school at Fulda, then the only nursery for the cultivation of the German language, and a noble pattern for many similar schools founded subsequently. Charlemagne, so discriminating in the selection of men of merit, bestowed upon Alcuin, among other gifts, the abbey of Tours, whilst his contemporary, Theodolphus, received the bishopric of Orleans. The exertions of Paul Warnefried (Bonifacius of Essex, 714-754), are also deserving of the highest praise. He selected Central Germany for the field of his labours; and never did the cause of religion and learning possess a more zealous champion. He it was who instructed Rotrude, the daughter of Charlemagne, previous to her being betrothed to the Emperor Constantine. To Eginhard, the secretary of Charles, we are indebted for the memoirs of the great king, whose character, but for this record, would probably have been less appreciated by posterity. Hroswitha, the gifted Latin poetess, wrote at that time many sacred poems. Several of her dramatic works were, at her request, performed in her convent, her superiors being probably anxious to enliven thus the dreary monotony of the cloister life. Some people, however, attribute the indulgence shown in this instance to the exquisite beauty of the nun, before whose charms even the austere monks bowed submissively. Of her works we possess two editions, that of Nuremberg, by Conradus Celtius, of the year 1511, and that of Wittemberg, of 1707, copied from the former. The work consists of sacred legends and sacred dramas, written in praise of chastity. Gallicanus and Abraham are the most remarkable among the latter. The few Old High German prose writings of the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries, are mostly translated from the Latin and Greek; and, on that account, only historically interesting, such as "The Benedictine Rules,' by Kero, a monk of St. Gall (8th century); the vocabularies of St. Galli attributed to St. Gallus (8th century); a translation of Isidor's epistles,' de Nativitate Domini;' a Gothic version of the Gospel of St. Matthew (fragmentary); some interlinear translations from Latin hymns; the Harmony of the Gospel by Tatianus; a Translation of the Psalms by the monk Notker, of St. Gall, who died in the year 1022; Williram's Translations and Explanation of the 'Hohe Lied'; also the 'Beda umbe diu tier,' in which moral lessons are deduced from the characters of certain animals, with scriptural quotations; the Merigarto (earth), a document of the 11th century, chiefly descriptive of the great waters (seas), mountains, or springs, and remarkable for the geographical and geological theories it propounds. We are informed therein that everything in creation, based upon the immutable laws of nature, exists for some purpose, though not apparent to the human understanding. Thus, in speaking of the water, the writer says: |