s round; and
follows him at evening, when he goes to supper, or gets its matters
settled by the officers of the court, who have to stay there till bed-
time. At supper, though there are but rarely 'mimici sales,' which I
cannot translate--some sort of jesting: but biting and cruel insults
(common at the feasts of the Roman Emperors) are never allowed. His
taste in music is severe. No water-organs, flute-player, lyrist, cymbal
or harp-playing woman is allowed. All he delights in is the old Teutonic
music, whose virtue (says the bishop) soothes the soul no less than does
its sound the ear. When he rises from table the guards for the night are
set, and armed men stand at all the doors, to watch him through the first
hours of sleep.

LECTURE IV.--THE GOTHIC CIVILIZER

Let us follow the fortunes of Italy and of Rome. They are not only a
type of the fortunes of the whole western world, but the fortunes of that
world, as you will see, depend on Rome.

You must recollect, meanwhile, that by the middle of the fifth century,
the Western Empire had ceased to exist. The Angles and Saxons were
fighting their way into Britain. The Franks were settled in north France
and the lower Rhineland. South of them, the centre of Gaul still
remained Roman, governed by Counts of cities, who were all but
independent sovereigns, while they confessed a nominal allegiance to the
Emperor of Constantinople. Their power was destined soon to be
annihilated by the conquests of Clovis and his Franks--as false and cruel
ruffians as their sainted king, the first-born son of the Church. The
history of Gaul for some centuries becomes henceforth a tissue of
internecine horrors, which you must read for yourselves in the pages of
M. Sismondi, or of Gregory of Tours. The Allemanni (whose name has
become among the Franks the general name for Germans) held the lands from
the Maine to the Rhaetian Alps. The Burgunds, the lands to the south-
west of them, comprising the greater part of south-east Gaul. The West
Goths held the south-west of Gaul, and the greater part of Spain, having
thrust the Sueves, and with them some Alans, into Gallicia, Asturias, and
Portugal; and thrust, also, the Vandals across the straits of Gibraltar,
to found a prosperous kingdom along the northern shore of Africa. The
East Goths, meanwhile, after various wanderings to the north of the Alps,
lay in the present Austria and in the Danube lands, resting after their
gr