ing Danish encroachment, judging culprits by jurytrial, and meeting for law-giving in the witenagemote were at work on the ground-sills of English and American freedom and order. But Karl the Great was not a soldier through blood-thirstiness or love of tumult. In those wild days the only path to order led across the battlefield, and toward a nobler order the great Frank was always advancing. At Christmas, in the year 800, in Rome, Karl the Great entered the Church of Saint Peter in the robe of a patrician, the dignity he had received from his father. A golden crown was set upon his head; the multitude raised the cry, "Salutation and blessing to the great peace-seeking emperor, Carolus Augustus." Pope Leo III. did reverence at his feet. His empire was vast, -all France and Germany, most of Italy, a large part of Spain. It was won by the sword, but ordered by a power far nobler. His ideal was no other than to establish the kingdom of God upon earth, in which the emperor was to be installed as God's vicar, in order that he might rule all people according to the divine will. He sent out messengers on an apostolic mission to admonish the people to lay virtue to their hearts and remember the judgment-seat of Christ. His glory as a law-giver was greater than that as a soldier. His "capitularies"- the collection of his edicts and ordinances were the universal code of the empire, a body of wise provisions, the source of inestimable political benefits to all Teuton races, even as the civil life of Rome rested upon the "Twelve Tables." Every important problem with which politics in succeeding centuries has occupied itself was entertained by him, even that of free schools for the people. The results of the striving of Karl the Great were sometimes harmful. He went from his own land into Italy, seeking to renew the life of the Roman empire, which had died away. Thus he turned outward the strength of Germany, which was sorely needed at home, the source of great misfortune afterward, whose bad effects are still to be felt. He established firmly the temporal power of the popes, whence came the unhappy strifes in which the emperors of succeeding times lost their dignity, and their people their lives. Great and wise as he was, he had no superhuman immunity from mistakes. He He was admirable in small things as well as great. He was the best farmer in his empire, saw to everything personally, -even had the reckoning laid before him of every wolf slain on his estates. gave security to trade, opening roads along the Rhine connecting the Mediterranean with the North Sea; so from the mouth of the Elbe to the middle of the Danube, with branches to the Black Sea and the Adriatic. With homely friendliness, he cherished the middle and lower classes, seeing that the welfare of the land lay in their prosperity. Princes far and near confessed his greatness. Haroun-alRaschid, the greatest of the caliphs, sent him an elephant and merry apes; the king of the Moors, a lion and Numidian bears; the emperor of Byzantium, an 1 Giesebrecht. organ, the first in the land of the Franks. The rich music of the miracle aroused astonishment, as it imitated now the rolling of thunder, now the sweet tone of lyre and cymbal. The hospitality of Karl the Great was profuse. So many strangers came to his court, it became at length a serious burden. It was a many-colored company. Near the monk from Italy, who could make Latin verses in the emperor's praise, stood, in the ante-room, the Saracen chief from Spain, with robe and turban covered with jewels. There were conquered Saxon chiefs in long linen robes, Lombard counts in short purple mantles set off with peacock feathers, Avars with long plaited hair, gorgeous ambassadors from Byzantium, brown Arabs, and slender Persians. These were the guests, and among them many a wild warrior stretched his giant limbs, spending the interval between battle and battle in boasting of his achievements. "How were you pleased with Bohemia?" it was asked of one. 1 "The people are little worms,' was the reply. "Seven or eight I spitted, like larks, and carried them hither and thither on my lance. I do not know what they grumbled meanwhile. It was not worth while for the emperor and me to put on our helmets on their account." It is hard to touch upon a character so commanding as Karl the Great without being led to inappropriate lengths by the fascination he exerts. We have now no concern with the magnificent figure 1 Gustav Freytag: Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit. except as he affected literature. He scarcely learned to read until he became a king, but he was a learner until his death. That he wrote himself, we can hardly say; but he stimulated marvellously the intellectual life of others. Out of the old German songs which his race-taught by the monks - was beginning to despise, came to the emperor the breath of a noble life. He comprehended them as no one before him had done, and caused a collection to be made of the lays of the ancient heroes. To him is due also the first German grammar. He encouraged the clergy, because he saw in them the bearers of all higher intellectual culture; they in turn worked for him with enthusiasm, preaching in German instead of Latin, and translating books. He called to his assistance the first scholars of Italy and England: notably, Peter of Pisa, Paulus Diaconus, Alcuin, and Eginhard. He allowed no original impulse of the Teutonic nature to fail, but disciplined each one, ennobled it, and so made it capable of maturing more beautiful blossoms and more useful fruit than before.1 He set within the earthy Teuton a Promethean spark, kindling within him the possibilities of a fine spiritual and intellectual life, -a fire that has not been quenched through the ages. No other man in all succeeding time has so influenced German development. No human being has ever made a deeper impress upon the world. The plain citizen revered him as the fatherly friend of the people and the just judge; chivalry held him to be the first of knights; 1 Giesebrecht. the Church has made him a saint; he is as famous in poetry as in history. Impressive pictures have came down to us respecting his person and bearing. In height he was seven times the length of his own foot, and nobly proportioned. His body never hindered his spirit. He fought with wild bulls in the forest of Ardennes, such was his force, and for more than thirty years he had no sickness. His brow was open, his eyes large and quick, his hair thick and fine, and, in age, of venerable whiteness; his countenance cheerful. His usual garb was a linen robe, woven at home by the women of his family, and over it the flowing Frisian mantle. He avoided pomp, although about him were vassals appointed to be models of splendid knightly discipline. These paladins surrounded him, it is said, as the stars the sun; he darkened them all. There is no character concerning whom the traditions are more picturesque. In the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg I remember a great painting by Kaulbach, illustrating what is perhaps the most striking story of all. When Karl the Great died, at Aachen, in 814, a sepulchre was constructed in which he was placed, sitting upon a throne-not in his simple Frisian mantle, but in the royal pomp which in life he had sometimes upon occasion assumed-in imperial robes, with a crown upon his head and a book of the Gospels, bound in gold, upon his knees. A century and a-half later the young emperor, Otto III, after a drinking-bout, broke into the tomb with a party of boon companions. There sat upon the throne the majestic figure, unwasted, save that the |