t a mixture of all races, with a most
powerful, but an entirely new type of character. Rome was no more
Senatorial, but Papal.

And why did these Goths perish, in spite of all their valour and
patriotism, at the hands of mercenaries?

They were enervated, no doubt, as the Vandals had been in Africa, by the
luxurious southern climate, with its gardens, palaces, and wines. But I
have indicated a stronger reason already:--they perished because they
were a slave-holding aristocracy.

We must not blame them. All men then held slaves: but the original sin
was their ruin, though they knew it not. It helped, doubtless, to
debauch them; to tempt them to the indulgence of those fierce and greedy
passions, which must, in the long run, lower the morality of
slaveholders; and which, as Totila told them, had drawn down on them the
anger of heaven. But more; though they reformed their morals, and that
nobly, under the stern teaching of affliction, that could not save them.
They were ruined by the inherent weakness of all slaveholding states; the
very weakness which had ruined, in past years, the Roman Empire. They
had no middle class, who could keep up their supplies, by exercising for
them during war the arts of peace. They had no lower class, whom they
dare entrust with arms, and from whom they might recruit their hosts.
They could not call a whole population into the field, and when beaten in
that field, carry on, as Britain would when invaded, a guerilla warfare
from wood to wood, and hedge to hedge, as long as a coign of
vantage-ground was left. They found themselves a small army of
gentlemen, chivalrous and valiant, as slaveholders of our race have
always been; but lessening day by day from battle and disease, with no
means of recruiting their numbers; while below them and apart from them
lay the great mass of the population, helpless, unarmed, degraded, ready
to side with any or every one who would give them bread, or let them earn
it for themselves (for slaves must eat, even though their masters
starve), and careless of, if not even hostile to, their masters'
interests, the moment those masters were gone to the wars.

In such a case, nothing was before them, save certain defeat at last by
an enemy who could pour in ever fresh troops of mercenaries, and who had
the command of the seas.

I may seem to be describing the case of a modern and just as valiant and
noble a people. I do not mention its name. The parallel