ds. Its origin is simple enough: but not so its
continuance. Why they should be nefandissimi in the eyes of Pope Gregory
the Great one sees: but why 100 years afterwards, they should be still
nefandissimi, and 'non dicenda gens Langobardorum,' not to be called a
nation, is puzzling.

At first, of course, the Pope could only look on them as a fresh horde of
barbarous conquerors; half heathen, half Arian. Their virtuous and loyal
life within the boundaries of Alboin's conquests--of which Paulus
Diaconus says, that violence and treachery were unknown--that no one
oppressed, no one plundered--that the traveller went where he would in
perfect safety--all this would be hid from the Pope by the plain fact,
that they were continually enlarging their frontier toward Rome; that
they had founded two half-independent Dukedoms of Beneventum and Spoleto,
that Autharis had swept over South Italy, and ridden his horse into the
sea at Reggio, to strike with his lance a column in the waves, and cry,
'Here ends the Lombard kingdom.'

The Pope (Gregory the Great I am speaking of) could only recollect,
again, that during the lawless interregnum before Autharis' coronation,
the independent Lombard dukes had plundered churches and monasteries,
slain the clergy, and destroyed the people, who had 'grown up again like
corn.'

But as years rolled on, these Arian Lombards had become good Catholics;
and that in the lifetime of Gregory the Great.

Theodelinda, the Bavarian princess, she to whom Autharis had gone in
disguise to her father's court, and only confessed himself at his
departure, by rising in his stirrups, and burying his battle-axe in a
tree stem with the cry, 'Thus smites Autharis the Lombard,'--this
Theodelinda, I say, had married after his death Agilwulf his cousin, and
made him king of the Lombards.

She was a Catholic; and through her Gregory the Great converted Autharis,
and the Lombard nation. To her he addressed those famous dialogues of
his, full alike of true piety and earnestness, and of childish
superstition. But in judging them and him we must bear in mind, that
these Lombards became at least by his means Catholics, and that Arians
would have believed in the superstitions just as much as Catholics. And
it is surely better to believe a great truth, plus certain mistakes which
do not affect it in the least, than a great lie, plus the very same
mistakes likewise. Which is best, to believe that the road to London
li