ly no fixed opinion on any character, or question,
but, safe in the general truism that the worst men sometimes do right,
and the best often do wrong, praises when he wants to round a
sentence, and blames when he cannot otherwise edge one--it might have
startled us to be here told of the nation which "deserved, assumed,
and maintained the _honourable_ name of freemen," that "_these
undisciplined robbers_ treated as their natural enemies all the
subjects of the empire who possessed any property which they were
desirous of acquiring." The first campaign of Julian, which throws
both Franks and Alemanni back across the Rhine, but grants the Salian
Franks, under solemn oath, their established territory in the
Netherlands, must be traced at another time.]

Thus much, of their 'Salian' epithet may be enough; but from the
interpretation of the Frankish one we are still as far as ever, and
must be content, in the meantime, to stay so, noting however two ideas
afterwards entangled with the name, which are of much descriptive
importance to us.

32. "The French poet in the first book of his Franciades" (says Mons.
Favine; but what poet I know not, nor can enquire) "encounters" (in the
sense of en-quarters, or depicts as a herald) certain fables on the name
of the French by the adoption and composure of two _Gaulish_ words
joyned together, Phere-Encos which signifieth 'Beare-_Launce_,'
(--Shake-Lance, we might perhaps venture to translate,) a lighter weapon
than the Spear beginning here to quiver in the hand of its chivalry--and
Fere-encos then passing swiftly on the tongue into Francos;"--a
derivation not to be adopted, but the idea of the weapon most
carefully,--together with this following--that "among the arms of the
ancient French, over and beside the Launce, was the Battaile-Axe, which
they called _Anchon_, and moreover, yet to this day, in many Provinces
of France, it is termed an _Achon_, wherewith they served themselves in
warre, by throwing it a farre off at joyning with the enemy, onely to
discover the man and to cleave his shield. Because this _Achon_ was
darted with such violence, as it would cleave the Shield, and compell
the Maister thereof to hold down his arm, and being so discovered, as
naked or unarmed; it made way for the sooner surprizing of him. It
seemeth, that this weapon was proper and particuler to the French
Souldior, as well him on foote, as on horsebacke. For this cause they
called it _Franciscus_. Fra