and that nearly all that is excellent in English and
American history is the fruit of that action. The part that England has
had in the world's course for eight centuries, including her stupendous
work of colonization, is second to nothing that has been done by any
nation, not even to the doings of the Roman republic: and to that part
Saxon England never could have been equal.

The race that ruled in England down to the day of Hastings--call it the
Saxon race, if you like the name, and for convenience' sake--was a slow,
a sluggish, and a stupid race; and it never could have made a
first-class nation of the insular kingdom. There is little in the
history of the Saxons that allows us to believe they were capable of
accomplishing anything that was great. The Danish invasions, as they are
called, were of real use to England, as they prevented that country from
reverting to barbarism, which assuredly would have been its fate had the
Anglo-Saxons remained its undisturbed possessors. "In the ninth, tenth,
and eleventh centuries," says Mr. Worsaae, "the Anglo-Saxons had
greatly degenerated from their forefathers. Relatives sold one another
into thraldom; lewdness and ungodliness were become habitual; and
cowardice had increased to such a degree that, according to the old
chroniclers, one Dane would often put ten Anglo-Saxons to flight. Before
such a people could be conducted to true freedom and greatness it was
necessary that an entirely new vigor should be infused into the decayed
stock. This vigor was derived from the Scandinavian North, where neither
Romans nor any other conquerors had domineered over the people, and
where heathenism, with all its roughness and all its love of freedom and
bravery, still held absolute sway."[B]

The work which the Danes began was completed by the Normans; and it may
well be doubted if the Normans ever could have effected much in England
had they not been preceded by the Danes. The Danes were Northmen, as are
the Swedes and Norwegians. By Normans are meant the governing race in
Neustria, the duchy of Normandy. The Northmen who settled in Neustria,
and who became the foremost people of those times,--they and their
descendants,--did in a portion of France what their kinsmen the Danes
were doing in England. Circumstances gave to the _Normans_ a consequence
in history that is denied to the _Danes_; but the influence of the
latter was very great on English life, and on the course of English
event