country, rude forests and mountains; and liberty is the sole treasure of an indigent people; for a poor country excites no avidity, and he who possesses little defends it easily. They were free because they were ignorant of those pleasures, often so dearly bought, which render the protection of a powerful master necessary. They were free because hunters and shepherds, who wander about in woods through inclination or necessity, are not so easily oppressed as the timorous inhabitants of inclosed towns, who are there chained down to the fate of their houses; and because a wandering people, if deprived of their liberty in one place, easily find it in another, as well as their subsistence. Lastly, they were free because, knowing not the use of money, there could not be employed against them that instrument of slavery and corruption, which enables the ambitious to collect and distribute at will the signs of riches.

Further, that spirit of liberty, arising from their climate, and from their rustic and military life, had received new strength from the opinions it had produced, as a sucker which shoots forth from the root of a tree strengthens by embracing it. In effect these people, esteeming beyond all things the right of revenging an affront, the glory of despising death and perishing sword in hand, were always ready to attack tyranny in the first who dared to attempt it, and in whatever formidable shape it appeared.

By these means was liberty preserved among the inhabitants of Germany and the north, as it were in the bud, ready to blossom and expand through all Europe, there to flourish in their several colonies. This powerful principle exerted the more strength in proportion as it was the more pressed; and the whole power of Rome having been unable to destroy it, it made that yield in its turn from the time it began to be enfeebled till it was entirely overturned. Indeed there was scarce a moment wherein these two opposite powers preserved an even balance. As soon as ever that of Rome ceased to be superior, it was destroyed: its celebrated name, that name which had been so long its support, was only a signal of ven geance, which served as it were to rally and assemble at the same instant all the northern nations; and immediately all these people, breaking forth as it were by agreement, over

turned this unhappy empire, and formed out of its ruins limited monarchies-states not less known before by name than by their form of government

In effect we every where see in those swarms of Germans and Scandinavians, a troop of savage warriors, who seem only born for ravage and destruction, changed into a sensible and free people as soon as ever they had confirmed their conquests; impregnating (if I may so say) their institutions with a spirit of order and equality; electing for their kings such of their princes of the blood royal as they judged most worthy to wear the crown; dividing between those kings and the whole nation the exercise of the sovereign power; reserving to the general assemblies the right of making laws and deciding im portant matters; and lastly, to give a solid support to the powers immediately essential to monarchy, distributing fiefs to the principal warriors, and assigning certain privileges proper to the several orders of the state.

Such for a long time was the constitution of all the governments which these people founded in Italy, in Spain, in Gaul, in Britain, at that memorable era which changed the fate and place of abode of so many nations-an era for ever memorable, since here we trace the first link (as it were) of a new chain of events; and hence we see spring forth the laws, the manners and principles, which have ever since governed so many celebrated nations, whose superiority of genius seems to have called them forth to determine one day the fate of almost all the rest of the world.

One cannot without difficulty quit an object so pleasing. It is time, however, to confine myself to what more particularly relates to my subject. All that we learn from the historical monuments of the north perfectly confirms the testimony of Tacitus, and either gives or receives new light from the annals of the other Teutonic nations. This remarkable agreement made M. de Montesquieu say that, "in reading Tacitus we every where see the codes of the barbarous nations; and in reading the codes of the barbarous nations, we are continually reminded of Tacitus." Notwithstanding this, we must not flatter ourselves that we can discover exactly the extent of power which the ancient kings of Scandinavia enjoyed, nor the particular rights and privileges of each order of the state If these were never very precisely determined among a rude people, who had no other laws but

custom, how can we distinguish them exactly at the present great distance of time? All that we can obscurely discover, is, that the Danes, who before the arrival of Odin were divided into many nations, and lived in great independence, were by force of arms subjected to kings more absolute, whom this conqueror placed over them*.

They were not long, however, before they recovered their right of electing their kings, and consequently all the other rights less essential to liberty. It is true, the people seem always to have made it a law to choose the nearest relation of the deceased king, or at least some one of the royal family, which they respected as issued from the gods. They still show the places where these elections were made and as Denmark was for a long time divided into three kingdoms, we find accordingly three principal monuments of this custom; the one near Lunden in Scania, the other at Leyra or Lethra in Zealand, and the third near Viburg in Jutland. These monuments, whose rude bulk has preserved them from the ravages of time, are only vast unhewn stones, commonly twelve in number, set upright and placed in form of a circle. In the middle is erected a stone much larger than the rest, on which they made a seat for their king t. The other stones served as a barrier to keep off the populace, and marked the place of those whom the people had appointed to make the election. They treated also in the same place of the most important affairs. But if the king chanced to die in war or at a distance from home, they formed upon the spot a place after the same model by bringing together the largest stones they could find. The principal chiefs got upon these stones, and with a loud voice delivered their opinions; then the soldiers who stood in crowds about them signified their approbation or assent by clashing their shields together in a kind of cadence, or by raising certain shouts. We know that this custom of electing their kings in the open field prevailed among all the northern nations, and was for a long time necessary, because they had no cities. The emperors of Germany were for many ages elected after the same manner.

In Sweden, they joined to the other ceremonies which I

This is an assumption founded on the Ynglinga-saga. See page 84.ED.

Worm. Monum. Danic.

The places indicated were in fact Thing-steads. See Note, page 108.-ED.

have been describing, an oath reciprocally taken between the king and his subjects. One of the judges of the provinces convoked an assembly to make a new election immediately after the death of the king, and demanded with a loud voice of the people, if they would accept for king the person he named, who was always one of the royal family. When they had all given their consent, the new king was lifted up on the shoulders of the chiefs, in order that all the people might see and know him. Then he took Odin to witness, that he would observe the laws, defend his country, extend its boundaries, revenge whatever injuries his predecessors had received from their enemies, and would strike some signal stroke which should render him and his people famous. This oath he renewed at the funeral of his predecessor, which was usually celebrated with great pomp; and also on occasion of the progress which he was obliged to make through the chief provinces of the kingdom, in order to receive the homage of his subjects. I relate here all the particulars of this ceremony, because the exact conformity which we find between the manners of the Danes and Swedes during the ages of paganism, will not suffer us to doubt but that the kings of Denmark were elected after the same manner. This supposition is confirmed by what we can discover of the ancient constitution of the kingdom of Norway. But it is sufficient just to mention here this identity of government in the three principal kingdoms of the North. To describe it minutely in them all would occasion tiresome repetitions.

The ancient inhabitants of Germany and Scandinavia emerged but slowly from a state of nature. The ties which linked different families together were for a long time nothing but a confederacy to exercise violence or to repel it. They possessed a great extent of lands, of which they culti vated but little, and resided on less: in short, they lived too separate from each other to have any great need of civil laws; and their chiefs had too little authority to make them observed, if they had. Hence so many little societies and confederacies. Men banded together to revenge an injury; and the sentiment of honour, as well as interest, made them faith ful to each other in an association so necessary to their wel

* Dalin. Suea Rikes. Hist. tom. i. chap. 7.

K

fare. A man's relations and friends who had not revenged his death, would instantly have lost that reputation which constituted their principal security. The inhabitants of Friesland lived for a long time in a state of this kind. Most of the other German nations had already advanced a step beyond this in the time of Tacitus. Endless disorders, the unavoidable consequences of the right of self-revenge, had suggested to the wiser sort among them the necessity of magistrates, who should interpose their authority in private quarrels, and oblige the offended person or his relations to receive a present from the aggressor; that so a compensation being made for an injury, might prevent the consequences of an eternal resentment, which from private persons might extend to the public. And for fear that this manner of terminating differences should become a new source of them, the compensation was determined by an invariable rule, and commonly limited to a certain value in cattle, the only money known in those rude ages. A mark of submission of this sort satisfied men's pride as to the point of honour, gratified their avarice, and sufficiently secured them from a repetition of the offence. The Danes, in this respect, followed the steps of the neighbouring nations. Mere parity of reason might give one a right to suppose this, even if we had not more positive proofs; but without accumulating these unnecessarily, we need only cast our eyes on the ancient laws of the conquerors of Great Britain, most of which are still extant; and whoever will run over the collections published by Lambard, Wilkins, and Leibnitz, will not doubt but they were all dictated by the same spirit, and were really the same at the bottom. It will be sufficient to quote a few particulars, to enable us to judge of their general spirit; for this is all I undertake to show of them. As to their more particular minute circumstances, they have doubtless varied a thousand times, in different ages and countries; but these we shall not descend to at present.

The laws of the Saxons, as regulated by Charlemagne, and published by Leibnitz, established a composition in money for most sorts of crimes; and for want of money this was to be paid in the flesh of cattle, every limb and joint of which had its known value regulated by law. They carefully distin

Leibnitz, Rer. Brunswic. tom. i.