guished the different degrees of offence, as well as those of the rank which the offended person bore in the state. Accordingly for the murder of a noble or a prince the composition was 1440 sous*, and the same for every wound that deprived him of his hearing, sight, or use of his limbs. But if this injury was done to a free man, and not to a noble †, the composition was only 120 sous ; at the same time the murder of a slave was rated but 30; which was precisely the price of a simple blow, that produced neither swelling nor blackness, if given to a prince or noble. Much the same proportions were observed by the law of the Angles. Wounds given to a maiden were estimated at double the rate they would have been, if given to a man of the same rank of life. It was not the same with a woman who had borne children. Outrages against modesty were also valued with a degree of exactness of which one would not have thought matters of that nature susceptible. The laws of these people," says M. de Montesquieu, "judged of insults offered to men by the size of the wounds, nor did they show more refinement as to the offences committed against women; so that they seem to have measured injuries as one measures figures in geometry."

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These laws vary more in what relates to theft. By the law of the Saxons, it was in most cases punished with death. By that of the Angles, which doubtless approaches nearer to the laws of the Danish nations, the robber compounded by paying triple the value of what he had stolen. But when government had acquired a little more stability, and when the manners were a little more civilized, men were not satisfied with opposing to the disorder a barrier so often ineffectual. The magistrates appointed to watch over the public peace pretended that THEY were insulted as often as that peace was broken, and therefore, over and above the composition which was to atone for the offence, they exacted a fine, either as a satisfaction due to the public, or as a recompense for the trouble given themselves in making up the difference and in protecting the offender. These fines were for a long time all, or almost all

If the author computes by modern money, it is 720 pence English, or about 31. sterling.--P.

The original is Roda, whence comes the word Roturier, by which the French express at present one who is not a gentleman.

Sixty pence, or five shillings sterling.-P.

the punishment which could possibly prevail among a valiant and free people, who esteemed their blood too precious to be shed than in battle. Their kings had for mary other way any ages no other revenue than what arose from these fines, and from their own private demesnes: all other kinds of imposition were not known till long after that period of time to which we at present confine our researches.

If this way of punishing crimes may justly pass for singular, that of establishing proofs in the administration of justice may be esteemed no less so. Here all the ignorance, all the barbarity of our ancestors manifest themselves so plainly, that it is not in the power of our reflections to add to them. Their embarrassment was so great when they endeavoured to distinguish truth from falsehood, that they were obliged to have recourse to the most strange expedients and most ridiculous practices. Thus they sometimes obliged the accused to produce a certain number of persons called Compurgators; not that these men had, or were supposed to have any knowledge of the affair in question, but they were simply to swear they were persuaded the accused spoke true. Besides this, they often appointed what was called the judiciary combat, and how absurd soever this custom was, it was so intimately connected with their opinions concerning destiny and providence, that it triumphed for a long time over religion, popes, and councils; and though a hundred times proscribed, as often revived and appeared again under different shapes. Lastly, when the discovery of truth appeared to them to exceed all human powers, they had recourse to supernatural means, and what they called divine judgments. They had many ways of consulting that oracle. For as, according to their notions, all the elements were animated by an intelligence as incorruptible in its justice as the deity whence it sprung, they thought they had nothing to do but to unite the accused person to one of these divinities, and so oblige it to declare by the manner of its acting upon him, what judgment it entertained of his innocence. Thus sometimes they cast him into a deep water, tied about with cords: if he sunk, that is, if the genius of the water received him into its bosom, it declared him to be innocent; if it rejected him, if he swam upon the surface, he was looked upon as convicted of the crime. This was called the watery ordeal, and was more dangerous than it ap

pears to have been at first sight; for though a man thrown into the water commonly sinks at first to the bottom, yet as they tied him about with large cords, "and withs," he sometimes swam on the surface spite of his teeth. This kind of proof indeed, as well as that of boiling water, was only for persons of inferior rank. Others handled hot iron, or put their hands into a red-hot gauntlet, or walked blindfold over burning ploughshares. If at the end of certain days there remained any marks of the fire on the hands or feet, the accused were judged guilty; if not, he was acquitted. There is reason to think that, notwithstanding they took all possible precaution, they also had recourse to certain preservatives against the effects of fire, and perhaps the same that mountebanks in our times make use of as oft as they amuse the people with spectacles of the same kind. Besides this, men who were accustomed to hard labour, to the toils of hunting, and constant handling of arms, had rendered their skins so thick and callous, that they could not easily be hurt; and as for the ladies, they were generally allowed champions to undergo the trial for them. The proof by fire, or fiery-ordeal, seems to have been more in use afterwards, and founded upon a different train of reasoning; for in things of this nature, we must not expect such rude minds to act very consistently.

As for the ceremonies which accompanied these kinds of proof, the cases in which they were appointed, and the other minute circumstances, they varied in different times and places and as imitation and habit perpetuate customs long after the causes of them have ceased, the ordeal was practised during many ages by men, who doubtless believed nothing about the genii presiding over the several elements, or the other doctrines of the ancient religion*. I shall not enter on the minute history of the ordeal, &c., which was not peculiar to the ancient Danes, and may be found described in other books. I thought proper only to mark the connection be

Thus long after Christianity was established among the Anglo-Saxons, king Edward the Confessor (a reputed saint) is said to have put his mother to the proof of the burning ploughshares. And even down to our own times, the watery ordeal, or proof by swimming, has been employed by the vulgar for the trial of witchcraft, whenever they could find means to put it in practice.-P.

+ Vid. Wormius in Monum. Danic. lib. i. c. 2, and Steph. Stephanius in his Notes on Saxo Grammaticus.

tween them and the doctrines of that religion, which I de scribed in the preceding chapters: a connection which has been seldom attended to, and which shows that it is only for want of studying mankind that they appear to act wholly without motives or principles of conduct. It was king Valdemar the Second to whom the glory belongs of having abolished this absurd and inhuman practice in Denmark †.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PASSION OF THE ANCIENT SCANDINAVIANS FOR ARMS: THEIR VALOUR: THE MANNER IN WHICH THEY MADE WAR.

"Rome had reckoned from its foundation six hundred and forty years, when the arms of the Cimbri were first heard of among us. From that time to the present have elapsed two hundred and six years more. So long have we been in conquering Germany. And in the course of so tedious a war, what various losses have been sustained by each party? No nation has given us more frequent alarms; neither the Samnites, the Carthaginians, the Spaniards, the Gauls, nor even the Parthians: so much less vigour has the despotic power of Arsaces had, than the liberty of the Germans. For, except the defeat of Crassus, what has the conquered and prostrate Fast to object to the current of our success? Whereas the

* He reigned from the year 1202 to 1241.-P.

+ I cannot conclude this subject without observing that we find some traces of the ordeal among the ancient Greeks and Romans. Thus in the Antigone of Sophocles, (Act II. Sc. II.) we have the following remarkable passage, which shows it was not unknown in Greece:

"The guards accused each other; nought was proved,

But each suspected each, and all denied,

Offering in proof of innocence to grasp

The burning steel, to walk thro' fire, and take

Their solemn oath they knew not of the deed."

See Franklin's Sophocles and note on the above passage. See also Stiernhök de Jur. Vet. Suec. lib. i. c. 8, apud Dalin, Sue. Rik. Hist. tom. i. ch. 7.

Pliny, speaking of a feast, which the ancient Romans celebrated every year in honour of the Sun, observes that the priests, who were to be of the family of the Hirpians, danced on this occasion barefoot on burning coa's without burning themselves this was apparently a relic of the fiery ordeal. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. vii. 2.

Germans have taken or defeated five generals of the republic who commanded so many consular armies. They cut off Varus and three legions from Augustus himself. Nor was that advantage obtained with impunity, which Marius gained over them in Italy, the divine Julius in Gaul, and Drusus, Tiberius and Germanicus in their own country. And even presently after this, the tremendous threats of Caligula became the object of their sport. A respite followed, till profiting by our discord and civil wars, they attacked our legions in their winter quarters, and even undertook the conquest of Gaul. We have since driven them back beyond the Rhine: but in these latter times, our victories over them have been less real, than the pomp of our triumphs.

If this people cannot be brought to love us, at least may they always hate each other! since in the present declining fates of the empire, fortune can grant us no greater favour, than the dissensions of our enemies."*

Such was the opinion entertained of the German and northern nations by the people who conquered the rest of the world. Such, according to the confession of Tacitus, was that martial courage, that ardour, that constancy in defending and avenging their liberty, which so early threatened the power of Rome, and in a few ages after overturned it. It is not my present business to write the history of that great revolution, which changed the face of Europe, but my subject leads me to disclose its causes, since they are contained in the opinions and manners which I am describing. We only want here that penetrating eye, that deep sense and energy of style, which distinguished the author I have been translating. The sources whence issued those torrents of people, which from the north overwhelmed all Europe, the principles which put them in motion, and gave them so much activity and force, these objects, so grand and interesting, have been but slightly and weakly treated of.

The more

enlightened people, who were the victims of these ravages, were too much pressed with the weight of their calamity to have leisure to trace its remote causes. Like the thunder which remains unseen in the clouds till the moment it bursts forth, and whose nature we have no time to study while it is

Tacit. Germ. c. 37, et c. 33.